Fail Whale

Former Palm and Twitter Techie Mike Abbott Jumps From EIR at Benchmark to Kleiner Partner

Kara Swisher in News on December 1, 2011 at 11:00 am PT

Well, that didn’t last long, Mike, but maybe the food was better at 2750 Sand Hill Road than at 2480 Sand Hill Road.

Exclusive: Twitter’s VP Engineering Mike Abbott Departs

Kara Swisher in News on October 13, 2011 at 5:49 pm PT

According to sources close to the situation, Twitter VP of Engineering Mike Abbott has left the company. He is apparently interested in doing more investing.

Twitter Brags of Successful Data Center Migration

Liz Gannes in Social on March 21, 2011 at 3:30 pm PT

Twitter, after years of fighting the Fail Whale, has recently made major changes under the hood to ensure its messaging service will stay online. Its engineering and operations teams coordinated a massive effort starting last September to migrate Twitter not once, but twice, shifting 20 TB of tweets and live traffic-serving from a first data center to a second testing center to a third “final nesting ground.”

It's a New Day, So NewEnterprise Is Here

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on December 1, 2010 at 4:10 am PT

Everyone loves Twitter and Facebook and Google, but when some part of them fails to work right, phrases like “Fail Whale” enter the popular lexicon, and careers, reputations and investments are all at risk. When they do work, the people who assembled all the hardware and software become the unsung heroes. That’s where NewEnterprise comes in.

Yahoo's Outage: Not-So-Perfect Timing

Kara Swisher in News on October 14, 2010 at 2:32 pm PT

Yahoo is never down. So the fact that its massive Web site is showing a “server outage” sign and little else is pretty astonishing. And not in a good way, since the company is in the midst of a swirl of takeover rumors, executive turmoil and worries about weak earnings next week. Yahoo acknowledged the issue and said it is fixing it.

Twitter's COO Dick Costolo Talks About Management, Monetization and IPO Cravings!

Kara Swisher in News on August 18, 2010 at 8:00 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown headed to the well-appointed downtown San Francisco HQ of Twitter as part of a renewed quest that I have dubbed “Meet the Twits.” No, really! Since Twitter has been on a significant hiring spree for all kinds of execs and staffers–it now has almost 250 employees–I have been in need of some serious meeting and greeting to see what’s going on there at the microblogging kingpin. First stop: COO Dick Costolo.

Twitter Down Again? Yep.

Peter Kafka in Media on June 15, 2010 at 8:16 am PT

Remember when we thought Twitter’s Fail Whale days were over? Here’s how to tell if it’s Twitter’s problem or yours (good bet it’s Twitter’s problem):

Twitter Can’t Promise It Will Stay Up During the World Cup

Peter Kafka in Media on June 11, 2010 at 3:00 pm PT

All those World Cup tweets you saw today? They’re not going to stop. And if they increase dramatically, well…Twitter can’t make any promises.

Twitter Still Attracting New Users, Phishers

Peter Kafka in Media on February 22, 2010 at 4:33 am PT

Twitter’s astonishing growth doesn’t just generate awe and giant valuations, it attracts scammers who want to prey on the service’s ever-expanding user base. The most recent example: A new wave of phishing attacks.

How Can We Miss Fail Whale if It Won't Go Away? (Twitter Down) UPDATED

Kara Swisher in News on January 20, 2010 at 4:23 am PT

Twitter went down early this morning, with the reappearance of a picture of the infamous fail whale below, which is now gracing the microblogging site’s front page. A message read: “Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.”