Filed under: Internet, News, Social Software, web 2.0
Twitter and Joyent are no more
T
alk about coming out of nowhere. Less than 48 hours after each company posted effusive posts praising the other service on their respective blogs, Joyent, the company that provides the infrastructure for Twitter, has announced on the company's blog that Twitter has been off of their servers since 10 PM last night.
As the post itself states, this is very surprising, especially coming only a day after Twitter posted this to the official Twitter blog. Interestingly, Joyent also posted a message yesterday, announcing their plans to provide excess capacity for Twiter during the Super Bowl.
What changed in 24 hours? While we have no idea, we can't help but speculate that this break-up is somehow related to Twitter's frequent outages and service hiccups as of late. The Twitter blog from this morning indicates that the team was working on a planned infrastructure project all night and that the increased downtime was unexpected. The entry further expresses the company's shared frustration with users over the recent downtime.
From the tone of Joyent's post, especially in the final line, "...Joyent is standing ready with excess free infrastructure to support Twitter through this transition in the event that they need it," we can't help but think Twitter might have dumped Joyent for a more stable provider.
Developer of our favorite blogging tool, Daniel Jalkut tweeted his own theories: Twitter will announce an acquisition deal in the next few days. His purely speculative thoughts, Google. We sure hope not.
Phone calls to Twitter were not immediately returned. Frankly, we'd turn off our phones too. We'll keep you posted if anything in this story develops. You know, assuming Twitter works well enough for us to get updates on all the gossip.
[via @gruber]
alk about coming out of nowhere. Less than 48 hours after each company posted effusive posts praising the other service on their respective blogs, Joyent, the company that provides the infrastructure for Twitter, has announced on the company's blog that Twitter has been off of their servers since 10 PM last night.As the post itself states, this is very surprising, especially coming only a day after Twitter posted this to the official Twitter blog. Interestingly, Joyent also posted a message yesterday, announcing their plans to provide excess capacity for Twiter during the Super Bowl.
What changed in 24 hours? While we have no idea, we can't help but speculate that this break-up is somehow related to Twitter's frequent outages and service hiccups as of late. The Twitter blog from this morning indicates that the team was working on a planned infrastructure project all night and that the increased downtime was unexpected. The entry further expresses the company's shared frustration with users over the recent downtime.
From the tone of Joyent's post, especially in the final line, "...Joyent is standing ready with excess free infrastructure to support Twitter through this transition in the event that they need it," we can't help but think Twitter might have dumped Joyent for a more stable provider.
Developer of our favorite blogging tool, Daniel Jalkut tweeted his own theories: Twitter will announce an acquisition deal in the next few days. His purely speculative thoughts, Google. We sure hope not.
Phone calls to Twitter were not immediately returned. Frankly, we'd turn off our phones too. We'll keep you posted if anything in this story develops. You know, assuming Twitter works well enough for us to get updates on all the gossip.
[via @gruber]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Todd said 5:35PM on 1-31-2008
Hmmmm this is a juicy bit, possibly the story of the year. But I cannot get a straight answer on whether or not Twitter is BEING acquired or if Twitter is MAKING an acquisition.
Don't leave loyal Download Squad readers hanging Ms. Warren, dig up some more info on this!
Reply
Christina Warren said 5:37PM on 1-31-2008
I seriously doubt Twitter would have the VC (even if it was all vapor) to acquire anything. My thought is that someone else is buying them or they are trying their own infrastructure. But yes, I'm digging and trying to find out anything I can - as soon as we know, you'll know!
Robert Headley said 7:47PM on 1-31-2008
Why would google buying Twitter be a bad thing? I'd send my DNA to google if I thought I'd get more relevant search results.
Google tends to buy, monetize (often transparently) and let operate freely. Not to mention the huge influx of cash a google purchase would mean.
Reply
Chris Corriveau said 10:37PM on 1-31-2008
I see Twitter as an easy acquisition target. I think you will see it happen later this year, if they can get the service to stay up longer then a few hours.
I doubt very highly that someone has purchased the service and this if causing the rift. It is more likely they are moving to more stable ground and taking charge of their own environment (finally). Joyent is a good company but supporting twitter has got to be mighty stressful.
Reply
dorian said 10:53PM on 1-31-2008
hmm... google buying twitter would be interesting since they have Jaiku already. They bought Jaiku for the founder and if they buy twitter it for the community but i don't know why it there servers would be down if that was true.
Reply
Michael Rose said 9:17PM on 2-02-2008
Twitter blog update indicates it's switched hosting to NTT America from Joyent. http://blog.twitter.com
Reply