Twitter’s slow and I’m on TechMeme

March 5, 2007 By

I’m on TechMeme with my “I’m gonna have another child” post. OK, now, that’s a bug. Clearly not important and hasn’t gotten many links yet. So, how did it get on there? I think Gabe’s algorithm is counting comments received per hour! I bet Gabe is writing a new algorithm now to filter out baby announcements. :-)

Also, Twitter is damn slow.

One thing that Twitter is going to have to be built for is an earthquake. Now, imagine a sizeable disaster coming to the San Francisco Bay Area. Imagine that Twitter will see 1000 times more traffic that day than it is today. Now you see the problem coming. I hope Evan Williams is thinking about how to make this thing scalable. It’s doubling in number of users every few days according to my followers’ list. Problem is that Venture Capitalists probably aren’t funding Twitter cause they don’t see the revenue.

Big revolutions always start with the stupidest small things.

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  • Dawn Douglass

    A baby?! Oh my gosh!! Congratulations, Robert!!

  • Dawn Douglass

    A baby?! Oh my gosh!! Congratulations, Robert!!

  • http://geekwhat.com/ Tony Chung

    Congratulations Robert! I’m super happy for you and your wife! =)

  • http://geekwhat.com Tony Chung

    Congratulations Robert! I’m super happy for you and your wife! =)

  • http://www.feeda.net/ John Anthony Hartman

    Congratulations!!!!! Oh this is such great news. I am so happy for Maryam and you. Patrick will have a ton of fun as well with the bambino. Cigars for everyone! ;)

  • http://www.feeda.net John Anthony Hartman

    Congratulations!!!!! Oh this is such great news. I am so happy for Maryam and you. Patrick will have a ton of fun as well with the bambino. Cigars for everyone! ;)

  • vrb

    Venture capitalist arent funding twitter because its a stupid small thing.

  • vrb

    Venture capitalist arent funding twitter because its a stupid small thing.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    vrb: Is there an echo in here?

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    vrb: Is there an echo in here?

  • http://blog.macb.net macbeach

    Slow? Is it even up? I decided not to try it until you had mentioned it at least 75 times. Happy “Scobleversary” Twitter!

    But I can’t get in. Couldn’t they come up with a better name? I’m used to thinking of “Twit” as an insult.

    Maybe I’ll be able to use it with my new Sprint “smart phone” which I ordered with “next day delivery” a week ago.

  • http://macbeach.blogspot.com macbeach

    Slow? Is it even up? I decided not to try it until you had mentioned it at least 75 times. Happy “Scobleversary” Twitter!

    But I can’t get in. Couldn’t they come up with a better name? I’m used to thinking of “Twit” as an insult.

    Maybe I’ll be able to use it with my new Sprint “smart phone” which I ordered with “next day delivery” a week ago.

  • http://www.techmeme.com/ Gabe

    Heh, how DID it get on Techmeme? It almost seems like there was a little engineering on your end… )

  • http://www.techmeme.com/ Gabe

    Heh, how DID it get on Techmeme? It almost seems like there was a little engineering on your end… )

  • http://www.techmeme.com/ Gabe

    ) = :)

  • http://www.techmeme.com/ Gabe

    ) = :)

  • http://www.grannybuttons.com/ Andrew Denny

    Sure, Twitter is a stupid small thing. Just like SMS was a stupid small thing.

    Actually, just like email was once stupid and small too.

    I still remember someone in the (London) Guardian about 1994 saying that email would never catch on amongst the populace, because ‘by and large, it’s used by computer users writing to other computer users about their computers’.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    macbeach: I get in once out of 20 tries in the past hour. REally really slow.

    Gabe: it was the most fun making news I’ve ever had! :-)

    So, you’re studying comment behavior, huh? Interesting!

  • http://www.grannybuttons.com Andrew Denny

    Sure, Twitter is a stupid small thing. Just like SMS was a stupid small thing.

    Actually, just like email was once stupid and small too.

    I still remember someone in the (London) Guardian about 1994 saying that email would never catch on amongst the populace, because ‘by and large, it’s used by computer users writing to other computer users about their computers’.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    macbeach: I get in once out of 20 tries in the past hour. REally really slow.

    Gabe: it was the most fun making news I’ve ever had! :-)

    So, you’re studying comment behavior, huh? Interesting!

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Andrew: it sure does seem that all interesting ideas are derided as being stupid and/or small.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Andrew: it sure does seem that all interesting ideas are derided as being stupid and/or small.

  • http://danooch.wordpress.com/ Dan

    Ack!! I have to have a Windows Live ID to comment on your wife’s blog. No thanks, but I did want to say Congratulations on the pending arrival!! Enjoy every minute of it.

  • http://danooch.wordpress.com Dan

    Ack!! I have to have a Windows Live ID to comment on your wife’s blog. No thanks, but I did want to say Congratulations on the pending arrival!! Enjoy every minute of it.

  • Pingback: WinExtra » Twitter is nothing more than a new age single channel IRC

  • FixedR6

    I don’t think Twitter is a new form of blogging, nor IRC, and it’s not an email replacement. It’s similar to SMS in length but with a couple of very big differences; personality spam can work to a degree, but back and forth conversations really don’t.

    If you don’t care about who sees what you write and have a very select group of friends, then you could use it to disseminate not-too personal information. You can’t restrict who tracks your post however so this model doesn’t really work once people realise that it’s not private in the way SMS is. For that reason it seems to be heading more towards social commentary or idea generation, you’re getting clumps of people with similar interests (Scoble is pushing 800) throwing up questions, or comments, or ideas and then getting feedback or forks.

    Still early days, give it a month to pick up and we’ll see how it shapes up.

  • FixedR6

    I don’t think Twitter is a new form of blogging, nor IRC, and it’s not an email replacement. It’s similar to SMS in length but with a couple of very big differences; personality spam can work to a degree, but back and forth conversations really don’t.

    If you don’t care about who sees what you write and have a very select group of friends, then you could use it to disseminate not-too personal information. You can’t restrict who tracks your post however so this model doesn’t really work once people realise that it’s not private in the way SMS is. For that reason it seems to be heading more towards social commentary or idea generation, you’re getting clumps of people with similar interests (Scoble is pushing 800) throwing up questions, or comments, or ideas and then getting feedback or forks.

    Still early days, give it a month to pick up and we’ll see how it shapes up.

  • http://blog.mastermaq.ca/ Mack D. Male

    That’s the biggest problem with Twitter…at times it is almost inaccessible. They really need to improve the performance!

  • Futebol Mad

    I’ll be impressed with technology when tricorders are reality and OSes think and respond. Until then, OS X and BSD will do nicely.

  • Futebol Mad

    I’ll be impressed with technology when tricorders are reality and OSes think and respond. Until then, OS X and BSD will do nicely.

  • http://blog.mastermaq.ca Mack D. Male

    That’s the biggest problem with Twitter…at times it is almost inaccessible. They really need to improve the performance!

  • Futebol Mad

    Twitter should be run on bsd beowulf clusters spread out over a few different data centers for redundancy and scalability.

  • Futebol Mad

    Twitter should be run on bsd beowulf clusters spread out over a few different data centers for redundancy and scalability.

  • http://hardline.wordpress.com/ The Populist

    what on earth is twitter? care to explain?

  • http://hardline.wordpress.com The Populist

    what on earth is twitter? care to explain?

  • http://www.almostageek.com/ ET

    Congrats on the baby, and hopefully since you brought it (twitter not the baby) to their attention they will work on the speed thing.

  • http://www.almostageek.com ET

    Congrats on the baby, and hopefully since you brought it (twitter not the baby) to their attention they will work on the speed thing.

  • Ronald

    Scoble, I always thought you were gay? Oh well, way to go man.

  • Ronald

    Scoble, I always thought you were gay? Oh well, way to go man.

  • http://www.ebig.org/ Kristen K

    I only saw it b/c it was on techmeme. Not online too much these days (haha). Congrats to you and your wife Robert!
    Kristen K

  • http://www.ebig.org Kristen K

    I only saw it b/c it was on techmeme. Not online too much these days (haha). Congrats to you and your wife Robert!
    Kristen K

  • LayZ

    @11 Yea, well at one time people thought CB Radios were a stupid small thing..and they ended up…uh…well..nevermind.. And weren’t we all supposed to be walking around with Dick Tracy watches by now? Why hasn’t that taken off? ;-) . Point it,some things do end up remaining stupid and small, not matter how cool a small set of the population think it is.

  • LayZ

    @11 Yea, well at one time people thought CB Radios were a stupid small thing..and they ended up…uh…well..nevermind.. And weren’t we all supposed to be walking around with Dick Tracy watches by now? Why hasn’t that taken off? ;-) . Point it,some things do end up remaining stupid and small, not matter how cool a small set of the population think it is.

  • http://neverness.wordpress.com/ neverness

    I guess the best thing twitter could do was create some kind of p2p based client which relais the messages around. As long as they keep is relatively small, don’t put 2 much a burden on one of my machines they would be welcome.

    And congrats to you and Maryam.

    I just noticed you’re message on Twitter, if I’m correct most developers of Joost are based in Leiden in the Netherlands.

  • http://neverness.wordpress.com/ neverness

    I guess the best thing twitter could do was create some kind of p2p based client which relais the messages around. As long as they keep is relatively small, don’t put 2 much a burden on one of my machines they would be welcome.

    And congrats to you and Maryam.

    I just noticed you’re message on Twitter, if I’m correct most developers of Joost are based in Leiden in the Netherlands.

  • http://web-strategist.com/ Jeremiah Owyang

    Are the Twitter servers in bay area? Hopefully not.

    What makes you think you’ll be able to access the web during an emergency?

  • http://web-strategist.com Jeremiah Owyang

    Are the Twitter servers in bay area? Hopefully not.

    What makes you think you’ll be able to access the web during an emergency?

  • http://wenchadmin.wordpress.com/ deannie

    I only looked at Twitter because you linked to it below and it looked busy and time consuming. I guess it is the right thing from some but it would require far more attention from me than I could afford during a regular work day. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

    Many Congratulations on pending new addition to the family. Patrick will forever be the cool older brother, what fun! This is really joyful news.

  • http://wenchadmin.wordpress.com/ deannie

    I only looked at Twitter because you linked to it below and it looked busy and time consuming. I guess it is the right thing from some but it would require far more attention from me than I could afford during a regular work day. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

    Many Congratulations on pending new addition to the family. Patrick will forever be the cool older brother, what fun! This is really joyful news.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Jeremiah: because the Internet stayed up during the 1989 earthquake. Because I was IM’ing with people only blocks from the World Trade Center during 9/11. Because I was SMSing with Ernie the Attorney who was in New Orleans during Katrina.

    Lots of our infrastructure will survive. And if it doesn’t, I’ll just walk to where it did survive to get stories out and in of the damaged area. Have Verizon Wireless, will travel.

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