War in Iraq ? Spain ejected from the World Cup ? Global Recession ?
All of these pale into insignificance against the catastrophic loss of Facebook earlier for 12 minutes. Yes, I said 12 minutes, I know precisely how long it was. That makes me VERY sad. Not sad as in ‘upset’ but sad as in “Get a life you prick”.
Within minutes Sky News had posted a bulletin on Twitter (not before me, of course !!)
Sky reported:
Facebook, one of the world’s most popular social networking sites, crashed this morning for around half an hour.
The outage was reported around the world; in countries including Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and Holland.
The crash happened at around 9am, with the Facebook blue branding displayed alongside the message: “Sorry, something went wrong.”
The problem also affected Facebook’s apps.
By 9.20am, the site refused to load at all, with the message “service unavailable” shown on a white background.
However, by 9.30am users reported the site was functioning again.
Facebook crashed in the US in February this year, after previously going offline for four hours in October last year due to network maintenance.
Facebook has 1.3 billion monthly active users, making it one of the most popular websites in the world.
It is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
As most know, I sit in front of my computer all day every day and into the evening. I have a very active brain that needs entertaining. I do this in the form of constantly building new websites for my clients or updating existing sites based around Vocal Booth Weekender and subsequent events. I’m pretty good at multi-tasking and work very fast on my beloved machine.
In between all of this work, artwork amendments, constant email to DJs etc I flick over to the Facebook tab to see what my friends are doing. I have no issues with my Facebook use although I know some people think I’m on it too much. As my brother said the other day “You need a hobby man” after I posted some nonsense on there. I replied “I’ve got one, posting shit on Facebook”.
I enjoy the interaction of my friends and I have always been thankful for Facebook because, without it, I’m not sure I could have built the support and wonderful VB Family.
Now the tide is turning though. It is getting harder to reach my real friends and people I want to interact with by a quick scan of my news feed. It is also harder to get important information to them all when pushing a new party or wanting to update them.
This is where I am grateful to have a very strong and loyal mailing list database where I can hit people’s inboxes for the events. The fact that I do not reach out to all and sundry also makes it less of an issue for me, although I recently paid €15 to get word of my Website services to more ‘viewers’ which has resulted in 3 new clients. I would never dream of paying to promote my very carefully policed parties, however to get word out to the general public I think paying to reach people is the only way forward now on Facebook.
Many are totally against this, however we’ve maybe had it too good for too long ?
Anyway, I did have an idea of a great blog to wrote about this but now Facebook is back on line I need to watch more videos of cats fighting and see more selfies of my mate’s dinner and how his muscles look even more impressive after his previous 30 selfies yesterday.
Remember, if you are a promoter or a DJ, you really need your own website for when Facebook finally keels over and dies ! I’ve already taken precautionary measures in case of this ‘end of days’ scenario by stocking up on tinned fruit and corned beef.
The importance of your own mailing list database and CAREFULLY CHOSEN AND CREATED email contacts has never been more needed, so start today. Do get in touch to let me help !!
Be good. See you at the ball !
