Please keep those Red Phones connected!
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Is Twitter failing to be the “pulse of the world”?
I rely on Twitter for a lot of things: stay in contact with people all over the world, get myself updated on issues that interest me, do some research, exchange points of view with others, share content I find interesting with my timeline. If it is true that every single user can make of Twitter what they want, and use it as they want, I think it would be safe to say that the vast majority of users are on Twitter with the same or similar purpose.
I grew used to this idea that Twitter was the “pulse of the planet,” like Twitter’s founders one day want it to be. The visual idea of the planet pulsing with tweets is an image that I use often to explain what Twitter is to people that don’t use twitter.
Unfortunately, in the course of the last several weeks, the “pulse of the planet” has become weaker—so weak that it is perhaps no longer reliable.
The World Cup 2010
Twitter has been through some reality tests in its short life: Michael Jackson’s death, Haiti and the events in Iran/ Venezuela/Gaza, come immediately to mind. In spite of the fact that these events had a global impact, this impact was not a lasting one and it got diluted on Twitter’s daily information flow after a few days.
And then the World Cup happened: either you like it or not (or don’t even understand the game itself and its strange rules) football (or soccer for my American readers) is a global sport: It attracts millions of fans around the world, like no other sport does, and it generates passion like no other.
Unlike past events, Twitter (the company) got involved in a way that they had not previously done from a corporate standpoint, and created a special search page for the World Cup event. They also created and implemented special #hashtags that turned into flags for this event. Suddenly, regular Twitter uses started to feel the effects of how a global event like the World Cup can negatively impact our ability to communicate through this medium. Twitter Status mails started to be a common presence in our mailboxes, the Fail Whale once again became a seemingly omnipresent part of our daily lives. When Twitter wasn’t in full on Fail Whale mode, the service was interminably slow and blog posts about what to do when Twitter is down started to be more and more prevalent.
Last Saturday I sent out a tweet stating that if USA and Brasil were eliminated from the World Cup we would probably see Twitter working as it should once again. If you think I am exaggerating take a close look at this graph based on today’s game Brasil vs Chile.
As you can see, on the moment that Brazil scored its first goal, the number of tweets per minute using #bra were 40x more than they were 30 minutes before the game started.* This means that Twitter’s servers were getting 40 times more traffic then they usually did and that meant the “High Rate of Errors” a.k.a. Fail Whales that users started to experience.
Please note that these numbers are already reflecting the fact that Twitter was forced to cut down its API Limit by 50% (down to 175 API calls/hour) in order to deal with this anticipated problem and even so, they couldn’t handle the massive influx of traffic and tweets.
Please keep those Red Phones connected!
There’s no doubt about it – Twitter IS an amazing tool, and its potential as a truly global communication tool is undeniable. Unfortunately, the World Cup and problems created as a result of this event evidences that there is still much room for improvement in the infrastructure of Twitter in order for it to live up to its fullest potential.
In the meantime, please keep those red phones connected, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev. This is a timely reminder that relying on any one medium of communication is dangerous. And, as long as the Fail Whale is a regular when it comes to the medium of Twitter, it just makes sense to have a backup communication plan. None of us that live on this planet want a Fail Whale to get in the middle of an important and potentially final message.
UPDATE [Tue, 29 June 2010] Twitter has temporarily lowered API-rate limit from 175 to 75 but has just now restored it to 175.
* Results obtained via Twitter Search main page
Picture Credits: Ann Douglas via Flickr (Under a CC License)
Editing: Shelly Kramer
[#Zargon] New Post: Keep those red phones connected, please! @ http://bit.ly/bdQldA
Keep those red phones connected, please! http://goo.gl/fb/enRRp [TheZargon]
Keep those red phones connected, please! http://bit.ly/bIBGET
[#Zargon] Please keep those red phones connected – http://bit.ly/c0zSHv #Twitter #WorldCup
[#Zargon] Please keep those red phones connected – http://bit.ly/c0zSHv #Twitter #WorldCup
RT @shellykramer: [#Zargon] Please keep those red phones connected – http://bit.ly/c0zSHv #Twitter #WorldCup
[#Zargon] Please keep those red phones connected – http://bit.ly/c0zSHv #Twitter #WorldCup @fjfonseca
As foreseen the #worldcup BROKE Twitter http://bit.ly/bAzaln @lacreid @borrigan @whilyn
Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
Please keep those Red Phones connected! – http://bit.ly/bdQldA #in
TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on #Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
Is #Twitter failing to be the "pulse of the world"? Keep those red phones connected! http://bit.ly/aeUx7n
Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
#bra RT @TweetSmarter Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter Huge events like the #WorldCup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication http://j.mp/9MRVKu
Is #Twitter failing to be the "pulse of the world"? Keep those red phones connected! http://bit.ly/aeUx7n
RT @ryanogs: RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events (world cup) call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
RT @TweetSmarter: Huge events like the world cup call into question relying on Twitter for important communication: http://j.mp/9MRVKu
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