Facebook goes down, is it the end of the world?
According to some sources, Facebook was down today for about an hour and a half. A lot of people use this popular app, but if it went offline for an extended length of time, or went away permanently, would you care?
According to some sources, Facebook was down today for about an hour and a half. A lot of people use this popular app, but if it went offline for an extended length of time, or went away permanently, would you care?
According to TechCrunch, the outage lasted from about 10:00 AM PST to 11:30 AM PST. Normally, I wouldn’t think that any website’s outage would be cause for alarm, let alone a blog entry, as most people rely on their net connection, not a specific website for the majority of their daily needs. After all, it can’t be compared to outages like the kind experienced by AOL users years ago, when a busy signal meant you were offline. Period. Right?
On the other hand, the pain felt during an outage of any kind is directly related to the number of people it affects. Facebook recently announced that they have over 30 million ‘active’ members. That’s a big community and presumably a good number of them were inconvenienced as a result of the outage.
I’m gonna come clean: I’m not on Facebook, and everything I’ve learned about it through friends and colleagues – the vast majority of whom *are* Facebookers – leads me to think that I’m far better off without it in my life. I barely have time to get to the must-do things on my to-do list without the seemingly addictive call of a social networking site.
So now that you know that I’m amongst the group who weren’t annoyed at all by this morning’s events, let me ask you this:
How important are sites like Facebook? If you use Facebook, or MySpace, or any other social networking site, would a lengthy outage cause you serious distress or would you look at it as an opportunity to focus on other activities?
Update, Aug. 1 12:25 PM EST:
Facebook speaks up about yesterday’s outage.
Hopefully this will allow some competitors like ClutterMe to gain some more members, err sign-ups.
Mark from ClutterMe.com
I enjoy face book.Many of my friends are on with recent updated photos of family members so I can see how everyone has changed and post new pic of my family also. I would not panick but I do depend on it for interaction with friends and family that I can't see every day.
Frankly, Facebook is a fantastic time waster, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't cruise the site oh, every 90 minutes or so just to kill that pang of curiousity while at work. Not only is it a great way to keep in touch with people around the world without having to write out enormous emails (oh what labour), but I can see what friends of mine are up to pretty easily. Some might call that stalking, but I like to think of it as being a lazy informed friend. However, if it goes offline for a couple of hours, I think I – as well as the rest of the social networking world – should be able to cope. There *was* a world before Facebook as hard as that is to remember…
I'm on Facebook to see pictures of faraway friends and relatives, but I think that the world would be better off without social networking sites. Emailing the pictures works too, and is much less time consuming.
As a way to keep up with the daily lives of friends Facebook is great. It also allows us to connect with people we may not have seen for a while and find out what's new in their lives.
Downtime is not a serious issue for me, if I wanted desperately to contact someone there's always that thing called the phone.
I use Facebook mostly to show off pictures I have taken, and I have found some long last friends since I have joined.
Frankly Facebook and Myspace are crawling with pedophiles and nutjobs. So would it be such a bad thing if they didn't exist? I think not!
Wouldn't bother me one bit. Face what? Who book? I have better things to do with my time like watch tv and surf the internet posting random messages…
Wouldn't bother if they went down, as it happens on the net all the time. But I would be upset if Facebook went down permanently, as it has been a fantastic resource for reconnecting with old friends, and making new ones! For all the non-Facebookers, open your eyes a little, and give it a try. If ya don't like it, you can always leave.
I use facebook alot and would probably be a little distressed if it crashed but I don't watch TV or movies…I choose to spend a few hours on the internet instead of hours infront of the TV…I think it's when you roll from the computer to the couch is when you need to be worried…so pick your evil
Wow i thought i was the only person in the world who thought this stuff. I don't understand why people need to blog every single thing that occurs in their life any given day! Is this necessary? Sure i see the upside of getting in touch with old friends or alumni but honestly the degree most "facebookers" take their involvement on these online communities is absurd. I wonder don't you have family to talk to in person or maybe exercise or something. But really my main peeve is how they use it to detail every minute of their day…and people actually care. Wow what have we come to? Who really knows.
When Youtube goes offline every week I get lonely. LOL. It is an inconvenience and I get a little sad but there is a lot of other stuff to do. If Youtube went offline I would wait for the next craze. Same with facebook I guess.
To most people other than college students facebook didn't exist a year ago. The number of people that I know that have signed up in the past year is unreal. What's worse is the number of people that seem to be totally addicted to it. My wife is home with a baby now and she was spending hours on it, so we both got rid of our accounts. What's interesting is that they don't delete your information or pictures when you "deactivate" your account. While I see the argument that it's so convenient to share pictures etc. Do I really care to have all kinds of long lost friends from high school or grade school keeping up with what I'm doing? If I really want to keep in touch, I can use the phone.
Facebook is great for people like me who have moved a few times over the years and would like to reconnect with old friends. Yes, I am a daily facebook cruiser but would my life end if it was gone for good? No, but it wouldn't be as much fun and I certainly wouldn't be reconnecting with the friends that I have been. Facebook is great!
I just quit facebook. I realized that I was spending too much time trying to track down girls i liked in high school and college. i realize that i was a loser and still am a loser and I think i am becoming a stalker.
I have found so many old friends on Facebook, that I don't think that I could be without it. I mean, I have found family all around the world that I wouldn't have access to if I didn't have facebook. I find it a lot easier than MySpace.
No. I do not think that it would be a problem if Facebook were to have been pulled off the internet. In fact, I find it to such an addictive, yet unfortunate waste of time! I feel that the whole social network ought to spend more time doing alternative activities, like going outside for a change. Wait a minute, do people still do that????
Hey – don't diss facebook. I am not addicted to it, but I met the girl I am dating on there and she is far smarter and better looking than anyone I met on lava or plenty of fish.
Haha! Greg, you're awsome!
Well facebook i reallly enjoy it my family remembrs from across da world are on it.so i get to see there recent pictures and information and they enjoy looking at my pictures.i get to keep in touch wid my old friends from so long ago which i met now on facebook and make new friends so my community of friends grows…its a great oppurtunity i think if facebook is stopped it will be a tragedyy!