How Digg.com Gets A Massage

I’ve got a bit of a fondness for the custom “we’ll be right back” messages some sites post when they are temporarily down for maintenance.

Last year I pointed out “Bloglines’ Plumber” and this spring I pointed out super-apologetic “Backpack Error Messages”. Flickr’s downtime message is so popular it’s become a “meme” onto itself (do a Google search on “is having a massage” if you’re not hip to the jive).

So I was thrilled earlier this week when I hit “digg.com” and found their downtime message:

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I really like how they turned their offline status into a content opportunity. People go to Digg to find something interesting to read, so this message is just about perfect from my perspective.


Originally published at www.onedegree.ca on August 11, 2006.