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Twitter Readies The Fail Whale For The Presidential Debates

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With just hours before the first Presidential Elections, Evan Williams is excited. More excited than judging Techcrunch 50, even. Within the past 24 hours, Twitter announced a special page to follow the worldwide discussions on the US Presidential Elections, allowing anyone to view the ongoing conversations as they happen for, some say, the most important presidential election in generations. With the usual coverage hot and heavy, we decided to ask the one question that was on everyone’s minds: Will the Fail Whale be ready for this evening?

The answer was on apparent when we dropped by Twitter HQ, and we found Twitter’s Whale Operations team — especially chief executive Twitterer, Evan Williams — all ‘a twitter’ with getting the Fail Whale fed, watered, and rarin’ to go in preparation for tonight’s climactic debate.

“The Whale only gets antsy in proportion to the interest and importance of world events. its particularly sensitive to events that geeks find interesting, and the US Elections really combine both quite nicely. Boy, have you seen Digg, lately?”

Weighing in at approximately 5 tons, “Fail”, as he’s affectionately called by the Twitter operations team, is kept in a giant 10,000 square foot aquarium behind Twitter headquarters. Found by Evan Williams six months into the launch of Twitter, he’s been a mainstay and beloved corporate mascot for everyone who currently works at Twitter.

Its anticipated that, much like every major outage that accompanies important events and spikes in volume, tonight, at around 8pm EST, “Fail” will likely reach a cruising speed of about 20 mph before majestically leaping out of his watery domicile and crushing the existing hardware architecture that supports Twitter.

“You know, people ask us all the time ‘Ev — why don’t you do something about that damned Fail Whale?’ and ‘Ev, people rely on Twitter in times of crisis, like the LA Fire Department’, and stuff like that”, said Evan Williams, as sat by the surface of the tank to bend down to stroke Fail on the head lovingly.

“And I think about it. But then I think of this sweet guy over here”, gesturing with his thumb, ” and I think everyone agrees. There’s just no way we could get rid of this guy. This lovable scamp is just a part of Twitter everyone loves. Come on, admit it. You’d miss the Fail Whale if he wasn’t around. We know we sure would.”

© 2008 TekPopuli.