for those who don't know, flickr was swamped over xmas/newyears, to the point of having extended periods where uploads/taggings/etc would appear then disappear then appear then disappear. in some cases (eg, me) flickr actually
lost some of the inputs/changes.
apparently ok now; or at least they've taken down the every-page Banner announcing "Flickr's servers are running
HOT".
it just occurred to me that flickr, and other such services which cater to social/cultural activity, may have to start adjusting their demand-level/usage-activity predictions to include known cultural patterns and events, in the same way that traditional service companies have to.
i.e., just as electricity generators have to ensure extra capacity is on line at key points in the social calendar (eg half-time in the world cup), internet companies sensitive to their users' perception of service levels will have to start attempting to predict what cultural events will have what impact on their usage levels, and laying in additional capacity for those events.
this could itself spark creation of vmware'd rent-a-farms specifically targetting these service companies' needs for trivial install and soft-scalable resources.
flickr is proving an interesting experiment in more ways than one....
Posted by
Grim..., around 1st January 2006:
Could this not go into the other Flickr thread, or was that too hard to follow, what with it's massive four posts?
Or perhaps into the "Statements of the Shitting Obvious" thread?
it's a radically different thread. and if it was obvious, it's odd that proactively preparing for known fluctuations in demand arising from social patterns has not actually been done by any of the major net companies. (or if they have, i've not seen any public acknowledgement of it)
flickr is different from most of the major net companies in that it is extremely bandwidth-heavy and server-processing-heavy compared to the other net services, plus it has deliberately targeted non-geeks, who have far more variable technology-use patterns.
this sort of pattern is only going to increase as more and more services are moved to distributed access. so flickr's acting as bell wether here.
Posted by
Sul_DUPE1, around 1st January 2006:
Any company should prepare for social patterns like this. Its good business practice. Didnt bulldog have some sort of variable bandwidth allowance for its users based on social patterns - albeit in a more on-peak off-peak simple way. Still. I've seen it in several places where I work *cough*. The fact that you havent seen any public acknowledgement probably means its working.
Posted by
WarHead, around 2nd January 2006:
Same issues apply with
telecoms. Anyone have problems texting their mum at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve? I wasn't sending any, but Mrs WH got 'Network busy' delays when trying to txt my son and sister.
"fluctuations in demand arising from social patterns has not actually been done by any of the major net companies."
Yeah but it's only an extension of things like engadget.com bolstering their servers in the run up to CES cos they know their site will get hammered with news and views.
Not rocket science.
Plus I was only winding you up.
As you say, some of these companies seem ill prepared for the bleeding obvious. I mean who would have thought new year would show up on Jan 1st. :)
sul: that example is actually just BT offering discounted pricing on its under-capacity times, to try to make extra money off the slack. the downstream retailers can then choose whether to use this differential pricing in their own schemes, either badging it as a penalty rate for peak times or a discount for off-peak: the label doesn't matter, only the numbers.
ie, this is fixed capacity with demand fluctuating beneath it.
rather, i was trying to get at the idea of actually proactively Changing the Capacity.
(which BT can't really do...)
sul,wh,+alfie:
yeah, it's not a new concept. and it's hardly rocket science. any business putting on extra staff for christmas is doing the same thing.
(see how many people crowded into the stable for the first one? outside of the new holiday season, it was normally just the one stablehand :)
point is, most of the "new economy" companies have been pretty insulated from mere capacity constraints, and hence pretty insulated from demand fluctuations.
and companies which target social activity are going to be far more susceptible to herd movements.
and the current/imminent wave of new tech companies are achieving growth precisely by targetting social activity.
so: obvious, sure.
that was kinda part of my point.
but, looking more at its consequences, an interesting change in flavour to the way "new" service companies are going to be handled.
and hence resourced.
and hence funded.
which has deep potential repercussions for new/startup companies, since most VCs can't spell IT let alone understand it, so they all play aboard the exciting-buzzword bandwagon, and if the herd panics about this, it could chill the pace of growth of new social-software-services companies for a couple of years.
further musing:
flickr can in a spirit of publicmindedness very easily manage this down.
but in a social way not a standard PR way. get this being talked about by some of the "cool kids" who are followed by the "cool ultra-tech VCs/analysts". this will have it explained in nice neat understandable fashion in a venue that a cool VC/stock-analyst can point to as a high-tech high-credibility reference.
the OSS boys played this same game a while back, using linux+netscape as stalking horses to change the way people thought about oss.
eg:
revenge of the hackers: phases of the campaign
i'm at a loose end atm and i've played this game before -- cal, wanna use your clout to hook us up with cory et al? boingboing has meme edge.
Posted by
lipsie, around 2nd January 2006:
this happens to flickr after major events
what's brilliant is that the site still works instead of the whole thing crashing and being shut down for special massage time.
plus i think lucky cal doesn't have to deal with that shit anymore, as the servers are in another part of the country.
but i agree with grim, this would have been fine in the other thread
the other thread is about flickr, this thread is not