eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Booming traffic demands put a constant stress on the social networks computing infrastructure. Yet, MySpace developers have repeatedly redesigned the Web site software, database and storage systems in an attempt to keep pace with exploding growth—the site now handles almost 40 billion page views a month.
Most corporate Web sites will never have to bear more than a small fraction of the traffic MySpace handles, but anyone seeking to reach the mass market online can learn from its experience.
Story Guide:
Membership Milestones:
- 500,000 Users: A Simple Architecture Stumbles
- 1 Million Users: Vertical Partitioning Solves Scalability Woes
- 3 Million Users: Scale-Out Wins over Scale-Up
- 9 Million Users: Site Migrates to ASP.Net, Adds Virtual Storage
- 26 Million Users: MySpace Embraces 64-Bit Technology
- Whats Behind Those Unexpected Error Screens?
Also in This Feature:
- The Companys Top Players and Alumni
- Technologies to Handle Mushrooming Demand
- Web Design Experts Grade MySpace
- User Customization: Too Much of a Good Thing?
A Member Rants: “Fix the God Damn Inbox!”
On his MySpace profile page, Drew, a 17-year-old from Dallas, is bare-chested, in a photo that looks like he might have taken it of himself, with the camera held at arms length. His “friends list” is weighted toward pretty girls and fast cars, and you can read that he runs on the school track team, plays guitar and drives a blue Ford Mustang.
But when he turns up in the forum where users vent their frustrations, hes annoyed. “FIX THE GOD DAMN INBOX!” he writes, “shouting” in all caps. Drew is upset because the private messaging system for MySpace members will let him send notes and see new ones coming in, but when he tries to open a message, the Web site displays what he calls “the typical sorry … blah blah blah [error] message.”
For MySpace, the good news is that Drew cares so much about access to this online meeting place, as do the owners of 140 million other MySpace accounts. Thats what has made MySpace one of the worlds most trafficked Web sites.