Microsoft’s social network clocking the most downtime
Social networks are more popular than ever, and are flourishing in the Web 2.0 era. With their huge user numbers, it is very important for these websites to have a high availability. For the largest social networks, a broken website usually means closing the door on millions of people.
To see how reliable they are, we took 12 of the largest social network sites in the world and tested their availability (uptime) over a one-month period. The included sites were MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Orkut, Friendster, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, Bebo, Last.fm, Reunion.com, Classmates.com and Yahoo! 360.
Windows Live Spaces (formerly known as MSN Spaces), Microsoft’s social network with an estimated 27 million unique visitors per month, finished last in the test with a total of three hours of downtime. The majority of that downtime occurred during US daytime on October 19 (a Friday), so it must have affected a very large amount of users.
In contrast, Yahoo’s old initiative in the social network arena, Yahoo! 360⁰ (which looks like it will be to be replaced with Yahoo! Mash during 2008) came out on top with zero downtime, while the two social network giants MySpace and Facebook (both fighting for supremacy) only had 10 minutes of downtime each during the same period.
| Social Network | Home page | Downtime |
|---|---|---|
| Yahoo! 360 | 360.yahoo.com | 0m |
| www.facebook.com | 10m | |
| MySpace | www.myspace.com | 10m |
| Bebo | www.bebo.com | 30m |
| Last.fm | www.last.fm | 35m |
| LiveJournal | www.livejournal.com | 40m |
| Reunion.com | www.reunion.com | 1h 10m |
| Orkut | www.orkut.com | 1h 25m |
| Classmates.com | www.classmates.com | 1h 40m |
| Friendster | www.friendster.com | 1h 50m |
| Xanga | www.xanga.com | 2h 10m |
| Windows Live Spaces | spaces.live.com | 3h 0m |
Social networks, by their very nature, have users who are very active and visit the site frequently, generating a lot of page views. This makes any downtime more noticeable, since it means a larger loss of page views than for a “normal” site (view an older article expanding on this). In the Windows Live Spaces example, three hours may not sound like all that much over a month, but it is three hours of lost page views and ad exposure that Microsoft will never get back.
Note:
The survey measured the home pages of the 12 included social network sites from October 19 to November 19, 2007. If a home page did not respond within 30 seconds, or gave an error back, it was counted as down.
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[...] Pingdom has released their latest downtime study – this time for the top social networks. Windows Live Spaces came in with the highest downtime – 3 hours in the last month. Pingdom notes, "In the Windows Live Spaces example, three hours may not sound like all that much over a month, but it is three hours of lost page views and ad exposure that Microsoft will never get back." [...]
[...] Pingdom has released their latest downtime study – this time for the top social networks. Windows Live Spaces came in with the highest downtime – 3 hours in the last month. Pingdom notes, "In the Windows Live Spaces example, three hours may not sound like all that much over a month, but it is three hours of lost page views and ad exposure that Microsoft will never get back." [...]
[...] [via Royal Pingdom] Link to This Post: [...]
[...] Royal Pingdom measured the uptime of 12 popular social networks – MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Orkut, Friendster, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, Bebo, Last.fm, Reunion.com, Classmates.com and Yahoo! 360 – over a three month period. [...]
[...] Microsoft’s social network clocking the most downtime — Social networks are more popular than ever, and are flourishing in the Web 2.0 era. With their huge user numbers, it is very important for these websites to have a high availability. For the largest social networks … Source: Royal Pingdom Author: Royal Link: http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=218 [...]
[...] Microsoft’s social network clocking the most downtime — Social networks are more popular than ever, and are flourishing in the Web 2.0 era. With their huge user numbers, it is very important for these websites to have a high availability. For the largest social networks … Source: Royal Pingdom Author: Royal Link: http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=218 Techmeme permalink [...]
[...] Microsoft’s social network clocking the most downtime — Social networks are more popular than ever, and are flourishing in the Web 2.0 era. With their huge user numbers, it is very important for these websites to have a high availability. For the largest social networks … Source: Royal Pingdom Author: Royal Link: http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=218 Techmeme permalink [...]
[...] I caught this over off Techmeme this morning – Royal Pingdom is reporting that Windows Live Spaces has the most amount of down-time (3 hours) than other popular social-networking sites. The sites they tracked during a single month are: MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Orkut, Friendster, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, Bebo, Last.fm, Reunion.com, Classmates.com and Yahoo! 360. [...]
Linkpost | 11.23.2007…
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[...] • Microsoft’s social network clocking the most downtime — Windows Live Spaces down 3 hours in October. [...]
Sotsiaalsete veebide kättesaadavus…
Pingdom tegi uuringu, mille käigus kontrollis tuntumate sotsiaalsete veebide kättesaadavust ühe kuu pikkuse perioodi jooksul. Uuring hõlmas selliseid teenuseid nagu MySpace, Facebook, LiveJournal, Orkut, Friendster, Windows Live Spaces, Xanga, Bebo…
[...] Performance: Yahoo 360 reliable, MSN Spaces not so much With users spending an average of 20 minutes on some social networks, the need for dedicated website uptime is critical –especially when you’ve got paying advertisers or customers. This list compiles which websites have the best performance, where Yahoo 360 (an unremarkable social network) is followed by Facebook to lead the pack. MSN Spaces suffers from the most downtime. [...]
[...] Pingdom tracked 12 top social networking sites from October 19 to November 19, and found that Microsoft’s Live Spaces had the most downtime, with the site failing to respond for a total of three hours over the course of the month. By contrast, that’s more than Facebook (10 minutes), MySpace (10), Bebo (30), LiveJournal (40) and Orkut (85) combined, and worst on the list. [...]
[...] Pingdom tracked 12 top social networking sites from October 19 to November 19, and found that Microsoft’s Live Spaces had the most downtime, with the site failing to respond for a total of three hours over the course of the month. [...]