Twitpocalypse ~ Is the twittersphere doomed?

[hamheyelliot]

http://www.twitpocalypse.com/

According to the website, the Twitpocalypse will occur due to a Y2k-like bug. Their explanation:
“The Twitpocalypse is similar to the Y2K bug. Very soon the unique identifier associated to each tweet will exceed 2,147,483,647.
For some of your favorite third-party Twitter services not designed to handle such a case, the sequence will suddenly turn into negative numbers. At this point, they are very likely to malfunction or crash.”
The website also has a counter where it counts up the number of tweets and provides an exact ETA when we’ll meet the end of Twitter society as we know it:

http://ec.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/twitpocalypse.png

The estimated time for twitter (apparantly twitter app) collapse is 5:05 AM ET (10:05 AM GMT).
Do you believe? :P

[Kieran]

Excellent! That's tomorrow :P
Can't wait to see it =D

[hamheyelliot]

You'll want to be up just before 10AM to get a glimpse!

[Chippiewill]

Could someone record it for me? I am planning on waking up after then :/, although the facebook updates will make it happen about an hour early I bet...

:P It's been pushed back till just past midday...

[Kieran]

It's up to 12:33 now :)

[hamheyelliot]

Yeah, it seems they recalculate it every few minutes based on the average tweet flow.
But it looks like it will strike sometime around midday.

Even if the apps crash, the main website will probably still function :S
Although it's really just a conspiracy in the end :P

[Kieran]

Their "tweet flow" is made up if you look at their source code...
Its not connected to anything. Lol

[Chippiewill]

I wonder if the pagan calendar ends and 2 trillionth tweet happen at the same time...


@above Lol, just looked a bit closer, xD it resets upon refresh :P

Edit: I get it now, a figure is delivered via php and then the script updates that figure to a rough estimate of what it should be. After 5 minutes the php script checks for a new value.

[Chippiewill]

All incompatible 3rd party tweet apps are dead :( or so they say...

Tweet of Apocalypse:

Unknown, some say that Twitter coded it so that it would be skipped so no one could claim glory...

[AlexOC]

So can someone sum up what happen, where was the explosions and dead birds?

[Verrou]

It's up to 2,149,533,968 and nothing has happened?

[AlexOC]

I expected chaos and destruction, the result is less exciting than we predicted.

[hamheyelliot]

It seems all is well.
For now.

[AlexOC]

It seems all is well.
For now.

Don't leave us in suspense like that you *******.

[hamheyelliot]

stfudgeu dammit you!

[Chippiewill]

Apparently TweetDeck broke...

[hamheyelliot]

Twitterrific, TweetDeck and 'Destroy Twitter' are all appareantly experiencing problems, with some generating negative tweet IDs, which is exactly the thing that was expected..

[AlexOC]

I expected chaos and destruction, the result is less exciting than we predicted.


Twitterrific, TweetDeck and 'Destroy Twitter' are all appareantly experiencing problems, with some generating negative tweet IDs, which is exactly the thing that was expected..

You worded it that way to make me look wrong.