Google+ Runs Out of Disk Space
By Mike Schuster July 11, 2011 10:45 AM
minyanville.com
It's been a whirlwind launch for Google+. Already, the site had to shut down user invites due to "insane demand." It's shaken up the likes of Facebook. And it's hit its first privacy gaffe by requiring all Google profiles be public.
But this weekend was notable for two reasons. It was the longest stretch of time where its invite system was up and running, which was a blessing to anyone who had been pining for a chance to try the new Facebook alternative.
And it was the first time that Google+ actually ran out of disk space.
On Saturday, existing Google+ users received a deluge of notification alert emails flooding in their inboxes. Apparently, the massive influx of new users overloaded Google+'s notification system and resulted in a spam overflow. In a Google+ post, the company's Senior Vice President of Social Vic Gundotra explained the mistake:
Please accept our apologies for the spam we caused this afternoon.
For about 80 minutes we ran out of disk space on the service that keeps track of notifications. Hence our system continued to try sending notifications. Over, and over again. Yikes.
We didn't expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have.
Thank you for helping us during this field trial, and once again, we are very sorry for the spam.
Ah, well. It happens. Better a bit of spam than our personal information in the hands of advertisers.
Google+ continues to be a work in progress, and despite a booming user base north of 4.5 million -- according to Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen -- the social network continues to keep its invite system open.
Hopefully, they're new storage system can handle it. |
