Record Traffic
Today was another big day for us. We had a record amount (for us) of traffic and new users (~5000). Picnik was featured in a mini-review on Tech Crunch which was then picked up by Digg. The TC/Digg traffic was a nice bump, but it wasn’t the crushing flood that I had worried about (and hoped for!). Perhaps that was because it got posted in the post Super Bowl hang-over period. Still, it was more traffic than we had seen before today.
The day wasn’t without some issues. We had a hiccup from our render server and earlier this morning one of our secondary servers was compromised through a security hole in cacti. I was also a bit worried about getting Digg’d before we had our full server architecture in place, but things went smoothly. Actually, it went really well.
People have asked about which tools/languages we use. We use Flash 9/Flex on our client. Our server is Linux, Apache, MySQL and Python. Given our Microsoft systems backgrounds (Darrin and I worked on OS/2 and NT back in the day), this has been a fun and interesting experience.
I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed my first serious foray into LAMP. There are the usual frustrations (I miss Visual Studio!) but these tools are very well adapted for the kind of work that we’re doing. Python has been a joy to use after I manged to de-program myself from using ;’s and {}’s. It seems like every time I come up with some new task, there is a Python lib or recipie that addresses the exact problem that I’m trying to solve.
As cool as LAMP is, the one language that makes Picnik possible is ActionScript 3/Flex. Adobe/Macromedia have done a awesome job at putting together a great set of tools and decent framework. Frankly, our entire company was founded around the idea that Flash/ActionScript was an important emerging technology and it would fun to ride that wave. We started in Flash 8/AS 2 and moved to Flash 9/AS 3 as soon as we saw the adoption rates spike up. Making that change to 9 increased our productivity by a huge amount. A big tip of the hat to the Adobe/Macromedia team.
February 5th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I think you guys have done a great job. Congratulations!
Wonder why you chose Flex ? Did you consider a Open Laszlo as an open source alternative ?
February 5th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
[…] to the bitnik blog, Picnik is powered by Adobe Flash 9 and the Adobe Flex 2 application framework with ActionScript […]
February 7th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Your architecture would make a great presentation for the Seattle Flex User Group. See http://www.flexilicio.us/blog/ for more info and to contact one of the group leaders.
February 9th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Hi. Just picked up picnik through an educational blog I monitor. I congratulate you on a fantastic product.
What will happen when all the schoolteachers in the world find you? And then their kids?
Can you handle that traffic?
I have seen some fantastic tools go from beta to a costly commercial access product after exciting many educators.. and kids… about the tools. Most of these folks, in public education, have little idea of cost, and little money to invest.
You must have a business plan when your beta testing is done.. can you help me understand where you plan to go in order to support the volume that will soon come at you? I want to let the many teachers I train understand the nature of this and if they will be able to continue use of it after a period of “testing”?
Thanks.. you have a winner!!
February 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
We can handle the traffic! Send them our way. We’re currently only running on one server, but it didn’t even break a sweat with our last surge of digg and TechCrunch traffic. By the end of the month we’ll be spreading the load (and failover) across five high end servers.
I’ll talk more about our business plan in an upcoming post. I think you will find our plans to be compatibile with school use. If you have any specific thoughts about the best way to work with schools, I’d love to hear them. Please email me (or the contact alias).
February 16th, 2007 at 11:29 am
After hearing about from Picknik on a blog site I regularly visit I have had a go at editing a photo - great much easier than anything else I have tried (not being particularly computer literate!!) Can you help me with what I do to just save the edited picture on my computer - I was taken to flicker which I didn’t have - I signed in and saved the picture to flicker and then to my computer - do I have to always go through flicker or can I save straight to my computer. I am going to explore Picknik and what I can do with it but dont want everything on a flicker site.
Thanks
February 16th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Hi Lizzie, yes you can save images straight from Picnik without ever signing in to Flickr. After you’ve edited your photo, go to the Save & Share tab and click the Save to Computer subsection. From there, you can scale the image size down, choose what format to save your photo (JPG is usually best for digital photos), and choose a quality. Hit the big green button and you’ll be asked where on your computer to save the photo.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:29 am
[…] From the developers: People have asked about which tools/languages we use. We use Flash 9/Flex on our client. Our server is Linux, Apache, MySQL and Python. Given our Microsoft systems backgrounds (Darrin and I worked on OS/2 and NT back in the day), this has been a fun and interesting experience. […]
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm
May I please ask that how long did it take to make this web site from scratch?
congratulation it is a great job.
April 28th, 2007 at 5:08 am
Peace people
We love you
May 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Question -
Is this a stock or custom WP theme you are using for this site? I like it a lot!
John
May 17th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Hi John — Happy to hear you like it! This is a custom theme, loosely based on the default WP Default/Kubrick theme.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Picnik is AMAZING..but you should give the effects for free.
It makes life easier for so many people.
Or atleast a 2 month free sign up and thereafter they can pay.
Thanks a ton