Twitter Brings Out The Slow Whale; No Updates Going On One Hour

I really feel for the Twitter team these last few weeks. It’s one problem after another. Last weekend it was the Twply marketing messaging, then the phishing scam, then we moved to a celebrity hack job. Unlike what appears to be the joy other bloggers have about writing about Twitter 20x a day, I frankly don’t. Come hell or high water, next week is a Twitter-free week around these parts.

So it seems now Twitter isn’t updating in real-time anymore. For the last hour (or more), updates are nearly an hour old. The latest friend updates I am seeing now are 40 minutes old as of this post. I had to ask people on FriendFeed if they are also seeing the slow whale on Twitter. And the answer from all replies is yes.

Here are some of their comments:

• No – but then again I am using identi.ca. – Andy C
• No updates here too :( – embee
• Yeah, same here – over an hour in Twhirl… – Cheryl Allin via twhirl
• Yeah…it’s not updating the people I’m following. – Still Just Katie
• Yep, no updates. Although, anything I put in does come to Friendfeed. – mathew, keynote not lame
• haven’t had an update in an hour :( takes longer to get to Friendfeed for me though unless i update it – Steph Pickett

Update: Twitter is now reporting slowness on their status blog.

Please report in if you are seeing a similar situation of no updates in 40 minutes or more.