So yesterday’s post here about Twitter’s DDoS attack got a couple answers, but what was one to do with their spare, stolen, or borrowed time yesterday, when there was no getting on Twitter for any reasonable amount of time?
Lots of people were having hissy fits over on facebook. I’m not sure if was the withdrawals (which I admit, I kind of had myself) or just sheer frustration. Then facebook was being a pain in the you-know-what, so that had people more frustrated.
As of this morning, I still can’t update on Twitter or follow anyone. Clearly others can, and I’m sure I’m not alone. So while I’m trying to keep myself entertained and occupied, I figured I’d find out what you guys did all day yesterday!
What Did You Do The Day Twitter Almost Died?
- Went to facebook. Oops, that wasn't working well either. (15%, 113 Votes)
- Used FriendFeed, duhh. (4%, 26 Votes)
- Like, totally went back over to MySpace, duuuude. (2%, 16 Votes)
- I actually found myself being much more productive with work. (19%, 136 Votes)
- I was a little stressed by it, so I had a drink. Or five. (10%, 73 Votes)
- Twitter almost died? Huh? (43%, 318 Votes)
- Other [answer in the comments] (7%, 53 Votes)
Total Voters: 735
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@stephauteri
Talk about timing.
On the day the Twitter died, I was actually working an on-site proofreading gig at an office that blocked Twitter (and Gmail, and everything else that mattered to me…::sigh::). Of course, I was agonizing over the fact that I’d be MIA from Twitter for such a long period of time (of course).
When I heard that it was down, my first thought was: “Thank god! Now it won’t take me as long to catch up!”
@lisamariemary
I used FB for a while on Seesmic – which was hard, because, I couldn’t track any replies. Then I tried Friendfeed for a while, which was okay. Then I just gave up and did some blog-catching up and stuff.
@Wordlily
I needed to be able to select more than one option in the poll. I was more productive (although not with work exactly), but first I went to Facebook. When I realized it wasn’t working properly (very early), I ignored both and was able to concentrate on other things.
@israelsituation
I was upset and didn’t know what to do with the little downtime I have during the day. To me Twitter is a fun way to take a 30 second break between projects. Without that I ended up waisting more time on other sites.
@Tom_Harrington1
I went through Twitdrawal.
@gcriff
I actually went out and did some photography. Tested a new meter and tried my hand at some different kind of natural light portraits. I actually learned some new things.
@Uva_Be
I was working at the pottery all day Thursday, clay dust & mud + computers don’t mix too well, so I missed the mess on Twitter. Guess I’m not in the 36% who tweet every day anymore. hm..? oh well. Glad it’s fixed now.
@Kim_Lou
Actually went over to Facebook for a few minutes until I realized it was having issues as well. Checked Google to determine what the problem was (as reported by various tech sites and other media). Went back on Facebook to explain to my friends (who were completely frustrated by then) that it really and truly was *NOT* the end of the world. Then proceeded to work through my own withdrawal symptoms by forcing myself to shut down my laptop and go shopping … yeah, it was a rough day …
@cauzway
Twitter went down while I was at work. I rarely use Twitter from work.
@LeSoul
I panicked because of the whole #freemediaVe situation (bad timing huh) so I got all geeky taking screenshots of my connection and how i couldn’t even reach http://www.tweeter.com and harrassed people on FB about it… then I decided to go to da movies to chillax, dropped and broke my phone, realised my mp3player wasn’t working and then I got all religious and prayed… what about you?
@marketlikeachik
It’s amazing the work you “forgot” you had to do until Twitter is down! I took the day to catch up on emails, faxes, and worked on my blog. Made it a productive day.
@Corvida
I did what I would’ve done had Twitter been up, except I didn’t have to deal with Twitter as a distraction. It was quite refreshing and relaxing.
@bradshorr
Panic, followed by acceptance that I am a Twitter addict, followed by perpetual checking to see if HootSuite was back online (it still isn’t), followed by redownloading Tweetdeck, which worked by late PM.
@jeffreyftang
A little bit off topic – but I’m curious. Did any of you bloggers notice a drop in site traffic or participation due to Twitter being down (not being able to promote or discuss your posts via Twitter)?
I called Embarq, assuming there was something wrong with my DSL service. They didn’t have a clue. I wonder if they ever did understand what was wrong. Did others call? Was I the only one? Maybe later in the day they had an AHA moment.
@Harounkola
I’m one that falls into the latter category, I really need to take more of an interest in Twitter
@MoneyEnergy
Twitter *is* still dead for me….. I can refresh and read updates, but not post from the web. I guess I should look into a 3rd party app finally for that, but I heard there were probs with those, too.
@alisonkerr
Honestly, I kind of breathed a sigh of relief because I had so many other things to do. When it did get back up it felt like it did when I first joined and only followed a tiny number of people. I was able to read 100% of the tweets for once. That felt nice.
I used the time to post at a forum about something I wanted to promote and I got some responses. I also read some blogs and wrote about them. I was still making connections, but in different places.
Much as I love Twitter and all the fabulous people I’ve connected with there, if it were off one day a week I’d be fine with that
@stenaranjo
I went into withdrawl then decided to get some work done and actually spend time with visiting relatives which had been all but neglected while I tweeted up a storm. Hope this doesn’t happen again. Need my daily doses on a regular schedule.
@3HatsComm
Worked like everyone else, even cranked out a quick blog post about Twitter being down and then visited some other networks like LinkedIn, other news sites.
@accrete
Actually, I was busy most of the day anyways but did try a couple of times to checkin on Twitter.
Not a big deal. Got lots of other stuff done.
@30dollardate
Totally had to leave the house so I would STOP RELOADING TWITTER TO SEE IF THEY’D FIXED IT ALREADY!!!! “What about now? Is it fixed now? What about…. NOW? What if I just check it… NOW?”
I wasn’t too stressed, TweetDeck kept telling me there was a problem, but not to panic. I had no idea it almost DIED!
@expatcatalyst
This tells exactly what I was doing….http://bit.ly/wQI2n
@FleaControlBook
Although I use social media it isn’t something I fret over when it is down. I saved my tweets for today but had trouble accessing.
Did a little on FB but not more than normal–today just posted a few items I would have normally posted on Twitter and had fed into FB.
@WanderingEds
i also saved my tweets but i tell you, our site traffic was down a little bit because we didn’t have that means of letting people know about new articles on our site. kind of an eye-opener! now, what did i do? went swimming with our daughter!
@scrappintimes
It did not bother me too much, as it happened while i was asleep. Due to time differences, i caught the first bit of it as i was winding down at work, and only realised the extent of it the next morning.
@Real_TechGuy
Heck, I still can’t get on twitter today.
It’s a little frustrating, but I figured out that life goes on
even when you can’t tweet, who knew???
@shurleyhall
I went to the web interface, which meant that two of my Twitter accounts were neglected. It wasn’t very satisfactory, though, so I spent much less time on the site and got on with other work. I still can’t access Twitter from Seesmic web and Hootsuite has been temperamental, though Seesmic Desktop seems to be working ok.
@federay
I ate a hell of a lot of frog.
outcome? Frog breath.
@yogababecafe
My Firefox browser still won’t let me into Twitter although I can get there via other means. Big pain. Any suggestions for how to get FireFox to let me into Twitter? I get the sign in box. It reads my name and password nd then nothing.
@ibeatcancrtwice
I slit my wrists. Isn’t that normal?
@indrazz
almost all online news media said it attacked by Russian hacker for shut Georgia activist off…
is it true??
sorry I use poor English..
@chrissponias
The impossibility was really frustrating. Not that I use Twitter so much. I don’t have time to stay there too much, but I visit it daily, and I missed it. Twitter is my favorite social networking site.
@CarlaRose
Though I’m on Twitter a lot (I think), I’m in the “Twitter almost died? Huh?” camp. I noticed a few hiccups but thought it was TweetDeck and not Twitter itself. I just moved on and did other things. If it was any other day, I probably would have been annoyed.
@cjbart
Still not able to post (Sunday 08-09-09).
But the Hiatus has generated more Income, form
other Marketing systems.
Miss Twitter but never relied on anything for Total Results.
Great Blog Post today on same Subject
http://www.michellemacphearson.com/
@ScribbleTweets
I couldn’t stand it any more. Broke out pen and paper and actually hand wrote some notes. Nice to have the old fashioned alternatives once in a while.
@jcargoo
Honestly and sorry to say it, I am not able to understand all this chattering around twitter.
Twitter for me is simply a way to use it for sharing interesting things with my followers and friends, nothing more! I will be upset if google is down but not an application like twitter!
Anyway, thanks for asking the question, it was for me a way to have a bit of fun.
@cristlegirl
I did a lot more talking on FB. I also started a blog redesign that I ended up finishing yesterday. I did get a lot of work done but I missed twitter and am very happy to have it back.
@merylkevans
I was sick that day and barely online — not because of Twitter (I found out later). Or maybe my body just knew and reacted?
@obedward
I compare Twitter to the Internet. For some people its a NEED. To others, its just an every day modern feature in the world. I think that without Internet (Twitter) some people may find themselves doing more productive things, or at least things that you don’t normally do or attend to because of the distraction that is Internet (Twitter). In the end, do really need Twitter? And how will it affect us if we were to subtract it from our lives? Thats what I want to know.
@kat_taf
I was a combination of two…I was much more productive and I spent quite a bit more time on Facebook than I typically tend to do.
That said, I still can’t get web-based Twitter to work for me. This of course also means I can’t add new followers.
@KohliConsulting
I was on Twitter very early in the morning and took care of my Twitter business before Ddos. I was somewhat concerned when later attempts to sign in to Twitter timed out and did not even result in a Fail Whale.
@ErinBassett
Here’s what I did: http://erinbassett.typepad.com/creativite/2009/08/7.html
@mytwitrva
Well, Twitter is important for my work, and my clients. So what did I do then? I gave up after 1pm, sent messages to clients that there was an issue and it could take a few days before we see a good fix. Then I took the kids to the beach and wrote a blog post (while watching them play) about how it’s important not to keep all your eggs in one basket with regards to social networking.
@gabediaz
I went on FriendFeed to see what was going on and was joined with my core Twitter regulars.
@sumlinsday
All I can say is that not having twitter is like trying to quit smoking, the more talk about it the more I wanted it, the more I saw news on it, the more I wanted it… does that warrant an addiction? Slightly freaky a person can have withdrawals from a silly online application, and I wouldn’t even consider myself a major player on the twitter scene.
@iGoMogul
I spent the downtime going over my RSS feeds more carefully. And, of course, reading all the blog posts about why Twitter might be down.
Sara @ iGoMogul
@cmi_managers
For me it raises the interesting question of how reliant are we on particular network providers. If Twitter was taken down for a sustained period of time, or perhaps your own account was removed for some reason, what then would happen to your network? How many people have a contingency for such events?
@shankargallery
I immediately went to my secondary platforms at Koornk, shoutem, youare and used ping and
digg.
@bradhart
It only had problems while I was asleep so I wasn’t in too bad of a shape, but I certainly got tired of hearing about how people were terrified without their twitter when I finally did login.