Downtime
Hey guys,
the rumors that Yahoo is going to close Delicious down completely shocked me, when I first saw it on Twitter. Some of you wrote that this the big chance for Zootool, but for me Delicious always has been the unreachable godfather of bookmarking and I felt very bad for all the guys over at Yahoo, who spent all their passion and work on Delicious in the past years and got kicked in the ass with that rumors. Fortunately it really seems that those rumors were nothing but rumors and Delicious is continuing their service.
For Zootool that “Delicious-is-closing-down-thingy” had the most impressive effect I’ve ever experienced since the beginning. Habu and I decided to lift the import limit and let all of you import as many bookmarks as you like. After I tweeted that, an onslaught on our import system began. Within three hours you guys uploaded bookmark files with more than 850.000 bookmarks. To be honest with you, we had just reached 650.000 bookmarks the day before so our bookmark database doubled within three hours. There’s no reason to keep it secret that the importer sucked and took the whole site down.
Normally the importer tries to be as smart as our Lasso bookmarklet and categorizes the imported urls by type (image, video, document, link). Therefor it connects to sites like Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr or loads of others and tries to find as many information about those urls as possible. (tags, thumbnail urls, embed codes for videos, etc.) It also tries to generate screenshots for all of them.
Imagine when the importer tried that for 850.000 bookmarks! It’s simply impossible in such a short time (unless you are Google maybe :)) and imports kept stacking up.
I decided to rebuild the importer and simply write all the bookmarks into our database to categorize them later and delay the screenshot generation as well. I also decided to take the site down completely to catch up with the huge pile of imports, migrate to bigger servers and improve the system as much as I can.
All bookmarks got imported over night and should now be safe and warm inside your “Zoos” :) You will find an “imported” pack in the sidebar of your Zoo where you always find them. Tags, titles, descriptions and your privacy settings should be imported correctly and as I said before, we are trying to find a good solution for the missing screenshots and they will be generated as soon as possible. If anything should have gone wrong, please let me know: zoopport@gmail.com
I know that downtimes suck. I hate when sites go down, that are important to me. But please stick with us through this growing pains and be sure that we do everything to keep the site fast and the downtimes short. Thank you so much for your patience!
If you got any questions, feedback or concerns, please don’t hesitate to write me: zoopport@gmail.com
Cheers, Bastian
I absolutly understand it. Thanks for writing this little report. Those guys at Tumblr are having downtimes every week but all the users don’t know why and so on. They don’t tell the reasons for their downtimes. But you guys did. And for me that’s great.
Max | December 18, 2010
You guys rock.
Oa | December 18, 2010
Thanks guys! I really like the way you guys care about zootool and the users. You guys really rock!
Even the site down message had a lot of care with a beautiful design. Cheers
Renato Carvalho | December 18, 2010
I ‘m recent Zootool user’s and your work is nice. Thanks.
Milda | December 18, 2010
as always, thanks for being so open about everything.
i’m crossing my fingers for zootool and its future and i’m sure you will do what you can to keep it up and make it even better. this is only one reason i am loving this service and community.
assbach | December 18, 2010
Thank you guys! Your positive feedback means the world to me!!! :D
Bastian | December 18, 2010
Ha, im one of those delicious migrators. I thought it was confirmed that it was shutting down… great…. sorry for pluggin your server with my 400 bookmarks.
I already had an accound with you guys before, but didnt use it too much.
maybe now i will use it more =)
Aleksey | December 18, 2010
Its so refreshing to hear an honest account of what happened; admitting weaknesses; not making excuses and then getting on with the job. Many sites could learn a lot from this.
Thanks!
Rmlalchan | December 18, 2010
I’ve discovered Zootol this summer, but didn’t used it, though, because of my long history with delicious – it was kinda not fun to start all over again, and there was no import at that time (or I was too stupid and didn\t found out how to).
So I, for one, am very grateful to the source of that rumor – because now I – with all my history – am at Zootool – finally! I’m very happy because Zootool just rocks!
leoric | December 18, 2010
Hi,
I’m exactly in the same situation than Aleksey (previous comment) and it’s my turn to apologize myself for this quick and probably stupid reaction… You had had around 500 bookmarks added from my account :)
Thanks for your quick reaction and for my part I understand the downtimes and wouldn’t blame Zootool for it.
Now, I probably more often use your service, this is a great place to stock’n share our bookmarks.
Keep up good vibes here you rock guys ;)
Auré | December 18, 2010
as assbach said before i do love the way you communicate to us and i do love the service itselfs and i really love the fresh and smooth interpretation of social bookmarking. and last but not least i love that you don‘t marginalise the term community. from my point of view the tag community is as important as the tag bookmark.
concerning delicious i have to state that i love it too. but since delicious belongs to yahoo it wins with yahoo and it looses with yahoo. i also was shocked but after i slept some nights over it i have to state that we as the loving community can do little to influence the yahoo decision makers. we can ensure that we remain able to work. exploring zootool means (for me) to see the future of social bookmarking.
i close my little comment with sending you my best wishes for you and all members of the zootool team. rock on folks ..
Markus Sowada | December 18, 2010
Didn’t bother me at all when the site was offline as I was just glad that Zootool was getting loads of new members. #win
Mark Collins | December 18, 2010
So, where can I pay you? :) Seriously … are you thinking about some kind of subscription (perhaps with some additional features)? I think Zootool is awesome and I hope it’s going to be around for a long time. I would sleep better if I knew that you won’t have to pull the plug at some time because of financial problems.
Jeremy | December 18, 2010
Let me just say that I’m truly impressed by your honesty and reactivity. You just gave me wanting to use your service more than before just by reading this blog entry. Cheers.
NiKo | December 18, 2010
That’s how ya weather a storm, folks. Great communications. Here’s to a mightier Zootool!
Kris | December 18, 2010
I only got here today through the story about yahoo and wanted to say nice, I like what I have seen so far, and the personal touch is a plus thanks guys.
Mark | December 19, 2010
Zootool will always be my favorite for bookmarking stuff. Hands down.:)
patrickjames | December 19, 2010
[...] einfach nicht zu rechnen war. Der Ansturm der wechselwilligen User war wohl etwas zu groß. Laut offizieller Ankündigung wurden zwischenzeitlich über 1000 Bookmarks pro Minute importiert und innerhalb von drei Stunden [...]
Zootool – Inspirations- und Bookmarkverwaltung | December 19, 2010
hi guys,
you did a real GREAT job. I didn’t even expect the upload so fast. to be honest. and I didn’t know the ZOO yet… what a shame, but got yr service as a good alternative to deliciious (R.I.P or not?). doesn’t matter. I loved delicious but really, they have lost now all my trust in this service. I’m happy to be here… all the best to you and keep on going! K.
karola riegler | December 19, 2010
I lovelovelove Zootool (the lovely blend of visual and informational bookmarking is perfect for me) and I, like many users, appreciate how great you guys are about keeping the community in the loop. Danke. =)
Celine | December 21, 2010
Downtime is something which happens to everybody, you can’t avoid it. All you can do is try keep people informed and work towards getting the servers up again. Well done getting everything back up though (:
Patrick | June 4, 2011