Google+ Server Hiccup Points To Its Popularity
Google+’s growth rate, despite it’s beta (or testing) phase status, has been incredible. Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters late last week that the Google+ user base has grown into the “millions.” As with any entity reliant on seemingly organic growth, there are pains involved.
Last Saturday, Google+ members like myself began to see repeated postings for 80 minutes, leaving many wondering if the newly established social network had suffered some sort of hacking or internal bug. As Google+ testers, we’ve all been warned of the potential for hiccups in the system as the Plus team adapts the system based on our feedback.
Google+ chief Vic Gundotra apologized to members in a post later that afternoon, stating that the repeated postings were due to server space set aside to track notifications of new replies to postings having ran out. You read that right — the company with some of the world’s largest server farms to keep up with new content needed to increase allocated space due to the surprising success of its foray into social networking.
I spoke with a Google spokesperson earlier today, who told me that although they cannot detail the particular factors involved with a future decision to open Google+ to everyone, their team is “thrilled so many people are interested in trying out a new approach to online sharing.” The spokesperson went on to say that they would continue opening up Google+ to new users “at any time.”
After the 80 minute span of what Gundotra deemed “spam,” all things were returned to normal, presumably as more server space was allocated. The growing acceptance and use of Google+ can be seen in the over 1,800 “+1s,” (the equivalent of a Facebook “Like” on Google+,) the 1,000 re-shares of the posted apology, and over 100 largely supportive and appreciative replies Gundotra received in response.
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