Tag: fail whale

Twitter’s Fail Whale Makes An Unceremonious Return

For those of you making you way to work or school this morning, you might be greeted with an old friend while checking your Twitter stream: The Fail Whale.

What could be the most loathed mascot on the Internet, Twitter’s Fail Whale has been popping up and ruining the start of the morning for many across the Internet. It’s unclear at this time what the issue with Twitter is as they’ve yet to update their Status blog.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Fail Whale, here is a little background on the big lug: The Fail Whale is employed by Twitter during periods of excessive downtime and is accompanied by the message “Twitter is over capacity. Please wait a moment and try again.”

Below are some tweets (when I could get them to load) of people venting their frustrations after seeing the Fail Whale.

@sohear
Steve O’HearIt looks like our Twitter login is swimming with the fail whale. 11 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@AnyaPalmer
Anya PalmerThat bloody fail whale is now OCCUPYING Twitter. Thank God for Echofon #occupytwitter 43 seconds ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto

@ItsGomezArmy
☞ мιѕѕ ιναηα ☜ ✫✯Fail Whale GTFO. 1 minute ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@theChinya
Chinmay Rane10 minutes. Fail Whale Message. Twitter Be Scalable. Use node.js . 2 minutes ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@deepfoo
deepfooI thought the Fail Whale was extinct. Oddly good to see the wee beastie again. 3 minutes ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto

Have you seen the Fail Whale this morning? Let us know in the comment area

November 29, 2011
A Google + Fail Whale?

One of the more recognizable images in relation to social networking has to be the Twitter Fail Whale. It’s become so commonplace — is that a knock on Twitter? — the image has even been made into a tattoo. The image of the whale being carried away by birds, created by artist Yiying Lu, offers a nice distraction when Twitter chokes on itself. With that in mind, what would a Google + fail whale image look like, especially if it was designed by Lu’s talented hand?

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki’s request, we now know how such an image would look. Over at Lu’s Google Plus account, Kawasaki and Lu have been trading posts that feature Lu’s idea of what a Google + fail whale should look like. The idea for a Google + fail whale came to Kawasaki when trying to post a comment to G+, and so, he requested Lu’s assistance.

The talented artist came up with a few ideas, and while it’s unknown whether Google would use such creations, the results are pretty fantastic.

The responses to Lu’s kick-ass work has been largely positive, which should be even more motivation for Google to incorporate her work. There is a point to be made, however, about her Google Plus Fail work is similar to the Twitter Fail Whale, something the Google Plus comments reflect:

Robert Vartanov – Naah, reminds me too much of twitter. Needs something more googly 🙂 Sharp, clean and simple.

And then there’s there’s the idea that Google Plus will be more stable than Twitter anyway:

Håvard Kvinnesland – Scaled to approx. 10 000 000 users in under 2 weeks WO a fail yet.. won’t be seeing it too often anyways 🙂

Whatever the case, Lu’s talent is impossible to deny. Whether it’s the Google Plus Fail Butterflies or something completely different, incorporating Lu’s work into Google Plus come across as an easy choice — that is, get it done.

Of the four images listed, if you had to pick one to represent a Google Plus failure, which one would it be?

July 12, 2011
Star Wars Fail Whale As Cool As Google Doodles?

Yes, most everyone is madly in love with the new Google Doodle, honoring Martha Graham — rightfully so — but there may be an honest-to-goodness competitor to today’s throne holder, the Star Wars Fail Whale.

Debuting on the official Star Wars blog, the Star Wars Fail Whale is a nifty take on Twitter’s all-too ubiquitous Fail Whale, and it’s done with great style. This sweet mash-up is courtesy of an online artist named Le Kemp, who, besides his Star Wars/Twitter remixes, creates some really nice visual work.

His take on the Osama situation is subtle, yet keen, especially if you like Jaws. And then there’s his rendition of the Twitter bird, which is also full of win in, and of, itself.

As for the Star Wars Fail Whale, the TIE Fighters are an extremely nice touch, and they also provide good insight as to why Twitter may be down. Clearly, the Empire finds their lack of network stability disturbing; although, I am curious about the relationship between the bird and the whale. That doesn’t really compute, unless Doctor Moreau is working for the Sith.

Silliness aside, in a day where Google Doodles rule the roost, save some room to celebrate the Star Wars Fail Whale. Of course, to actually beat the current Google Doodle, the TIE Fighters would have to fly the Whale off of the screen. Google’s animation is just that good.

May 11, 2011
LeBron James Has Joined Twitter, Will Soon Break It

UPDATE: Lebron James has now joined Twitter: @KingJames.

Twitter hasn’t verified the account yet, but both Chris Paul and CNBC’s Darren Rovell has confirmed it is indeed him. One has to ask the question, will LeBron announce his decision via Twitter?

@KingJames has yet to Tweet anything, but he already has over 42,000 followers, at the time of this writing.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: Sometime over the next few days, July 5th if you believe certain reports, LeBron James will break Twitter. No, I don’t mean physically break it, but his name alone will bring the microblogging site to its knees.

In case you’re wondering what I’m getting at, LeBron James officially became a free agent last night at 12:01 AM; he’s free to sign with any NBA team. When he makes his final choice, Twitter should watch out because the sheer volume of Tweets, upon James’ signing, will send Twitter into full on Fail Whale mode.

When LeBron finally decideds upon a team, do you think it will cause problems for Twitter? Let us know.

Twitter user simonan had a fool-proof plan on how Lebron could bring down Twitter forever and it would probably cause several servers to catch fire at the Twitter HQ…

LeBron should announce where he’s going with justin beiber at his side at a Twilight screening and crash Twitter foreverless than a minute ago via websimonan
simonan

All jokes aside, LeBron’s free agency would be huge news without any extra media coverage, but when sites like ESPN.com create a whole “LeBron Tracker” page solely devoted to his free agency, the hype builds… and when you feature LeBron in Chicago and New York jerseys, that hype reaches a fever pitch.

Chris Richardson over at IntentionalFoul.com brings up a good question, in regards to ESPN’s LeBron Tracker…

”Where’s Dwyane Wade’s page? You know, the only player out of the “top free agents” who actually won an NBA title? While it looks like Wade’s staying in Miami, if James has own page at ESPN, Wade certainly should as well. Another thing, does this pave the way for future big-time free agents? Tom Brady’s contract is up next year. Will he be getting a page too?"

Currently the Cavs, Clippers, Mavericks, Bulls, Knicks, Heat, and Nets are all vying for James’ talents. With no clear frontrunner, it’s anyone’s guess where he’ll be suiting up next season. One thing is for certain though, people will be Tweeting about it and Twitter should brace for impact.

Where do you think LeBron will be playing next year? Tell us what you think.

July 6, 2010
Lakers Win Over Celtics Gets Twitter Record Tweets Per Second

Twitter announced today that it achieved a record 3,085 tweets per second last night as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics in the NBA Championship.

For comparison, Twitter sees an average of about 750 tweets per second in a given day, and 65 million total tweets in a day. One has to wonder how much the Fail Whale has held these numbers back though.

Speaking of Fail Whales, Twitter has changed the message on the Fail Whale page slightly to link to the Twitter Status blog. The company apparently got the idea from a blog comment on TechCrunch. If you’ve been questioning the importance of blog comments, that’s something to think about.

Twitter also highlighted these goals from the World Cup as the most tweeted goals of the past week:

1) Japan scores against Cameroon on June 14 in their 1-0 victory (2,940 TPS)

2) Brazil scores their first goal against North Korea in their 2-1 June 14 victory (2,928 TPS)

3) Mexico ties South Africa in their June 11 game (2,704 TPS)

As for the Lakers, Twitterers weren’t the only ones excited about the outcome of that game.

June 18, 2010
Twitter Not Ready For IPO Fortunes

"We’ve raised all this money. We’ve created this global brand…Now we have to go build the business that lives up to that valuation."

Twitter COO, Dick Costolo, January 20, 2010

And that, my friend, is why we won’t see a Twitter IPO this year. That, and this really obscure New Yorker reference:

“My view of our financial future is like that old New Yorker cover where the New Yorker looks at the view of the United States and the IPO is way out west somewhere,” Costolo said yesterday during a panel discussion at Bloomberg’s San Francisco bureau. “Bronx and Queens are our 2010 financial plan, and that’s what we’re focused on right now.”

You could argue, that Twitter needs to be closer to Madison Avenue than the Bronx, but I think we all get his point–Twitter’s just not ready to head west and make its fortunes in an IPO.

Aside from figuring out how exactly it plans to generate revenue, the other monkey on its back isn’t actually a monkey at all–it’s a whale!

The company really needs to figure out how to avoid such random outages. A few of these immediately prior to an IPO, and it won’t be just whales that are sinking–Twitter’s opening-day valuation won’t be able to tread-water either!

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January 21, 2010