Sorry, Jacob, that’s just wrong.

Changes get made through constructive feedback, preferably left after the crisis has peaked, when everybody is calm and not likely to overreact. A complaining customer is just as likely to get “the bedbug letter” as actual change – perhaps more likely, especially if they’re complaining about a crisis in progress.

The problem with complaining and calling Twitter out now is that they’re already doing their best to restore functionality. Complaining is just frustrating for them; they’re already aware that there’s a problem and, to be blunt, they’re probably more upset about it than you are. By taking a step back, you allow them space to breathe and to fix the problem, and you allow yourself the chance to sound like a rational, adult human being.

Constructive feedback can be as simple as “I was frustrated about [x], because [y]“: “I was frustrated when Twitter was down this afternoon, because I love the service and have come to rely on it, and I was at a loss without it. I hope that it doesn’t happen again.” But it should be no more heated or emotionally charged than that; if it is, you run the risk of – as above – getting “the bedbug letter”. (I encourage you to look that up if you’re not familiar with it.) If you have actual expert advice to offer, do so cautiously, but remember that the people you’re talking to undoubtedly actually know what they’re dealing with better and more closely than you do, and are probably already considering the options you’re suggesting. Still, it doesn’t hurt to suggest – as long as, as above, you’re calm and cool about it.

:)

http://istwitterdown.com/

:)

m.slandr.com just doesn’t load (or at least it’s taking a long time to do so).

“I can confirm that we have been down for some time due to a massive unexpected cache invalidation. We’re working to bring the site back up, although some features will be limited until caches have repopulated.”

The reason we use a lot of these free services is because we depend on them, enjoy using them, etc. Simply not using the service is not a very good approach in my opinion. You can see that a lot of people get frustrated with twitter when it goes into its “downtime.” Quite frankly it is the consistent, frequent, and random downtimes that people are upset about. Every service goes through some sort of down time, including Google. It’s the approach you take to your “downtime” that matters. I say everyone should complain and call out twitter, that’s how changes get made.