The Great Twitter Follower Crash of 2008!
Mark July 23rd on your calendars. This is the Twitter version of the 1929 stock market crash! Twitter Stars is ruined! lol. (Yeah, I know. That’s a bit dramatic.)
See that little badge to your right in the side column? Does it still say 2,563? Yeah, it took me a year to develop my following. That’s right. I opened my Twitter account on July 15th, 2007.
I just went from following 2441 people and being followed by 2,570 people to now just following 226 and being followed by 291? Wait. WHAT!?
I have 3,894 Favorites, 1,328 DM’s, and 9,856 updates. I had 2,570 followers and was following 2,441 people. At least half of my blurbs were @ replies. I am not a bot. I am not a spammer. I would like my account back please. Thank you.
I would imagine that everyone was suddenly struck by the same exact idea I had; immediately go into your Gmail account and start clicking the URL for every Twitter user who has ever followed you. That ought to fix the scalability issue almost immediately!
Even @CreativeSage burst forth with a hearty, “WTF??” and she’s the sweetest person on the planet!
I am now cut off from my clients on Twitter, blog contributers, and members of the Shift+One Media blog network. Worse of all, I’m cut off from @br3ndabot.
From Twitter
CreativeSage Hello, new Twitter friends! I’m still experiencing Twitter glitch that won’t let me follow more people. I’ve sent msg. to Twitter support.:)
CreativeSage Welcome, new Twitter friends! I’m very annoyed at Twitter for abruptly halting ability to follow back, with no warning. Hope to change that.
CreativeSage @Jack @Ev @Biz After last tweet, I suddenly LOST over 1000 followers & many I’m following—WTF?? Please stop limiting my Twitter friends!:(
CreativeSage Have you suddenly had Twitter followers cut or Twitter limiting your ability to follow? I just “lost” 1000 followers abruptly, can’t follow.
jungleg @markdavidson actually, a bunch of people are reporting the wipeout of both followers and following http://tinyurl.com/6yayj5
markdavidson I just went from following 2400 people and being followed by 2,560 people. Now I’m following 226 and being followed by 291? WHAT?
markdavidson @Jack @Ev @Biz After last tweet, I suddenly LOST over 1000 followers & many I’m following—WTF?? Please stop limiting my Twitter friends!:(
markdavidson @CreativeSage I just stole your last blurb… Now how am I supposed to DM people?
markdavidson Wow. Good job Twitter! http://tinyurl.com/6yayj5
CreativeSage @mousewords @markdavidson You too? I hope it’s temporary, but it does make it impossible to DM many friends or add new ones who added
Pistachio either 42,000 Twitterers just dumped @kevinrose, or something’s afoot in Denmark tonight?
markdavidson @Pistachio I just lost 2,400 followers… including you!
Pistachio @markdavidson what worries me is that we actually *did* get disconnected. not just the appearance of disconnected. oy.
markdavidson @Pistachio Yep. Major bummer. No more DMs. Really bad. Cut off from clients and from blog contributors. And I can’t follow people back. 
CreativeSage @Jack @Ev @Biz I second @MarkDavidson’s tweet & others who suddenly got many followers cut & can’t follow back. You’re impairing business.
CreativeSage @shepherdfx It seems to be happening to some people and not others—just saw post on http://getsatisfaction.com/ I doubt 1000 are spammers.
CreativeSage @Karoli Unfortunately, many of the people being abruptly cut are friends, not spammers. Need to be able to DM & add legit friends/colleagues
cory_grimes @Jay900 Yeah. They tried to get rid of spammers, but they just ****ed up everyone’s followers.
cory_grimes @gamingangel No. Twitter is effing up right now. It’s happening to everyone.
cory_grimes IT’S SO BAD: http://i36.tinypic.com/2cqbr83.jpg
cory_grimes Twitter is “working” on fixing the followers glitch: http://is.gd/11Y0
Tags: @markdavidson, Fail, Followers, Following, Twitter
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Now it says “Twitter is currently down for maintenance. We expect to be back in about an hour. Thanks for your patience.” ARGH!
Trishs last blog post..Operation Soldier Care - Update 1
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Well, we can only hope that all these “maintenance periods” make Twitter even stronger. I know lots of people are ready to go overboard and join the fail whale in the ocean, but I haven’t given up yet.
I hope you get your followers back Mark! I know how hard you work on your timeline.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I haven’t given up, either–it’s probably a “bump” in the road along the way to the new spam protection. According to the Twitter blog, it will fix itself–here’s hoping!
I had just gotten caught up last night…I neglected to write down my total. But I *did* get past 1,000 in both columns–really, Mark, I did!
mousewordss last blog post..25 Words, and More
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:16 pm
It’s just a glitch in reporting. The data is surely still there.
What surprises the heck out of me is the greed that people are showing… Nobody is concerned with the number of people they are following (it dropped, in case you hadn’t been paying attention).
Everyone is screaming about followers dropping. Wake up and realize the friends you spent time getting to know are missing.
If you’re that important, they’ll find you again.
Sol Youngs last blog post..Facebook Group for Philly Geek Dinner
July 23rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Hi Sol,
markdavidson @Pistachio Yep. Major bummer. No more DMs. Really bad. Cut off from clients and from blog contributors. And I can’t follow people back.
CreativeSage @mousewords @markdavidson You too? I hope it’s temporary, but it does make it impossible to DM many friends or add new ones who added
CreativeSage @Karoli Unfortunately, many of the people being abruptly cut are friends, not spammers. Need to be able to DM & add legit friends/colleagues
You are right, it’s about the connections. Following and Followers both matter.
M
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Yeah this totally sucks! I only have 6 followers, and 6 following. They are all friends I know in real life. And I am definitely not a bot, but I lost every following and every following… It’s at 0 0 now! I twitter all day long, and while it wont take much for me to regain these few friends back, it is rather annoying!
July 24th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I wonder if it’s proportional? I went from ~800/500 to ~700/400 (following/followed). So while I didn’t lose as many followers as the people who have a larger network, I may have lost about the same percentage.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I have a reconnect page-
TwitterGate 2008
http://www.mrsfussypants.com/whatsmartmommiesknow/twittergate-2008-epic-fai.html
July 24th, 2008 at 8:14 am
A bunch of accounts lost followers only after Twitter status said it was “Restoring” them … but that they would be lower after the “restoration.”
status.twitter really needs to say “still working on it .. still working on it .. done!” Instead of leaving “Even after this recovery is complete …” up 14 hours after saying it would be fixed in “several” hours.
Is it “fixed?” Is there a new problem? Or is there a new Sheriff in town—new rules about following? I’m betting it’s the latter, and Twitter is becoming a less free state to deal with their overload.
July 24th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I was affected by this too and lost followers; thanks for blogging about it, Mark. I’ve contacted Twitter Help. I assuredly am a real person!
Torley Livess last blog post..Amazon S3 service failure is the harshest I’ve seen yet
July 24th, 2008 at 10:32 am
How very strange… I think my account is okay. Although I never followed it too closely as far as numbers are concerned. I’m seeing the same Tweeters showing up that I follow. Twitter has been acting insane for quite a while now, but this is just a BIG deal now! UGH @pasadenaviews
July 24th, 2008 at 11:11 am
[...] see in the image above, I lost 13 percent of my Twitter followers in one fell swoop. Other users have reported a drop in followers still as high as 28 percent, although it appears that the problems are being [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
[...] omnipresent Fail Whale. You can read another post about Twitter’s huge follower disruption here on TwitterStars.com. Ironically, on the same day that the massive Twitter follower distruption [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
[...] - Wednesday - you completely dropped the ball, Twitter. Your inability to stabilize whatever new operations you were performing cost us the communities we’ve built over months and even years, and that is no laughing [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Im super pissed about having to campaign for followers again.
July 24th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
[...] see in the image above, I lost 13 percent of my Twitter followers in one fell swoop. Other users have reported a drop in followers still as high as 28 percent, although it appears that the problems are being [...]
July 24th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
yeah, i’m still working on getting my followers past the triple digits and the twitter crash really dashed my dreams. it’s terrible really. but now that twitter’s restored, i still lost three followers out of the deal (i guess they removed me during the crash) and i cried. lots.