Twitter Traffic Grows 600% in One Year
How quickly has the service grown? According to the Daily Mail, 600-percent in the last year, which goes a long way towards explaining why the site can barely go 48 hours without some feature ceasing to function. Part of its popularity probably has to do with its ease of use (after signing up you never have to visit the site again -- messages can be posted via text message), and its integration with Facebook (your Twitter updates can be automatically set as your Facebook status).
All of Twitter's downtime has produced its own Internet phenomenon called the "fail whale" -- the name is derived from an image of a whale being carried by birds that the site uses as an indicator of technical difficulties. What exactly the image has to do with Twitter, or failing web services in general we don't really know, but it sure is cool looking. [Source: Daily Mail]
