So Rocknerd’s latest article is a hit. Slashdot got it a few thousand hits, which my small but clever setup based on WP-Super-Cache coped with just fine.
Reddit is another matter: 20,000 35,000 and still going. (Update: Topped out around 58,000. Update: Make that 80,000.) The server CPU got hammered to shit, then it ran out of memory, then it ran out of CPU again but this time in wait state. Answer:
- Cut fcgid children from 10 to 7. This means Apache queues a bit, but now it doesn’t run out of memory.
- Hit the berserk button: put the page into “directly cached files”, i.e. serving that particular page completely static from Apache without even mod_rewrite. Means comments will show up when I remember to purge the cache by hand.
Comments are occasionally pretty good too. Slashdot, Reddit, Reddit. They keep talking about the majors and the rock stars, because people don’t care what you wrote and just riff on the title. Oh well.
(For non-technical readers: you almost certainly don’t want to run your own copy of WordPress, I’m just a control addict. Just have wordpress.com host it, you’ll be much happier.)
This is, of course, a perfect example of what I was describing: a huge hit with no monetisation. So GO BUY A T-SHIRT. We’re supposed to sell T-shirts to make money now, aren’t we. UK/Europe shop, US/international shop. The printing is impressively good quality and copes with washing just fine. SELL SELL SELL.
You have a tshirt?? How much? /s
Depends what shirt you want it on. Click on the links!
What webhost do you use? Do you use Amazon Web Services?
Cheap VM on Rackspace. (512 meg!) Considering Linode, however, who I like a whole lot.
Rackspace, that’s interesting. How much approx. did your article going viral cost you in terms of added Rackspace costs? Rackspace and AWS are good for scaling up your site if you go viral but I worry about the hit to the wallet. I wonder where best place to host is if you’re creating content that might go viral.
Nothing – text is bugger-all bandwidth!
If I was worried about that I’d use wordpress.com or Blogger or something.
I do personally find the nickel-and-dime Amazon charging model disconcerting. Like suddenly getting a phone bill for $10,000.
So it was an interesting article, thank you. Heated discussions went down on Slashdot and Reddit. If you don’t mind me asking, are you able to actually pull in any money through your blog? T-shirt sales? Does it end up just being pocket change?
Nah. This blog gets a hundred hits on a good day. Attempting to monetise that is pretending I’m writing it for any reason other than to amuse myself.