The illustration that came to be known as the Fail Whale features a serene, optimistic beluga being lifted out of the waves by a flock of orange birds. Not only was the scene perhaps too cheery for a problem as serious as a service outage, but Twitter wanted its platform to be so reliable that such an image was virtually unnecessary. Besides, the whale wasn't meant to represent failure in the first place. Originally, before Twitter plucked the whale from a stock image site, artist Yiying Lu had made it for a birthday card. Lu had given her creation a dreamy title: "Lifting a Dreamer." Lu and others believe Nick Quaranto was the first to suggest the nickname "Failwhale" for the design in 2008.
So... essentially it was the image that Twitter put up when its service failed - Hence Failwhale. Yup, news to me too!!!!
4 comments:
I have heard of a twitter fail whale, but never before have mine eyes seen such a beast!
Oh good.... Someone who understands what that poster meant! I don't 'tweet' so had no idea.
i'm clueless what's a "twitter fail whale"???
The illustration that came to be known as the Fail Whale features a serene, optimistic beluga being lifted out of the waves by a flock of orange birds. Not only was the scene perhaps too cheery for a problem as serious as a service outage, but Twitter wanted its platform to be so reliable that such an image was virtually unnecessary. Besides, the whale wasn't meant to represent failure in the first place. Originally, before Twitter plucked the whale from a stock image site, artist Yiying Lu had made it for a birthday card. Lu had given her creation a dreamy title: "Lifting a Dreamer." Lu and others believe Nick Quaranto was the first to suggest the nickname "Failwhale" for the design in 2008.
So... essentially it was the image that Twitter put up when its service failed - Hence Failwhale. Yup, news to me too!!!!
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