We've moved the two hour downtime that was scheduled earlier this week. It will be on Sunday from 6-8p instead. During this downtime we'll be upgrading our database hardware which unfortunately can't be done while the site is online.

In the past, we've not done as good a job at giving advance notice when we need to bring the site down. Whenever possible, we will try to give 24 hours notice from now on (usually via a notice on your Twitter homepage).

Of course, avoiding downtime at all is the bigger goal. Scheduled maintenance, like the one this Sunday, will help Twitter to run more smoothly.

set up your phone or IM on Twitter, you can send a command like:

track NYC

When someone (anyone who updates in public) mentions "NYC," you'll get it on your device in real-time. From there you can send "whois username" to find out more about that person, or "follow username" to follow his or her updates. Don't want to receive anymore about NYC? Toggle it off with:

untrack NYC

You can create as many of these as you want, so send "track drinking tea", "track iphone", "track walking san francisco" and you'll receive matches for all. Want to get a list of what you're currently tracking? Send "track" alone (or "stats"). Turn them all off by sending "track off".

We love this technology, and hope you do too. We're continuing to refine and play with it, so please send your feedback!

What will you track?

Twitter grew a little more this week when Alissa Huskey officially joined our engineering team. So far, the team has pretty much been imported from outside San Francisco including such exotic locales as Canada, Kentucky, and Washington DC. We found Alissa in Los Angeles and she's now moved to San Francisco as well. Welcome, Alissa!

Twitter from a phone? Which one?

Cottyn | Fresh-Picked T-Shirts: "In the old days, people had to guess what their friends were doing every 5 minutes. How'd we ever get by?" This is a good link for a Friday afternoon.

Follow VMA.

Timbaland got to Vegas early and started Twittering. Daughtry arrived today, and others will follow. MTV also created this cool feature for their site which pulls in Twitter updates as well as video, news, and blog posts. Also, here's the

During our scheduled maintenance window we experienced some unexpected heavy traffic at 3a PT. We've been working throughout the night to resolve the issues and get back to 100% functionality as soon as possible.

UPDATE

We're back up and stable. We'll be watching all systems closely for the next few hours. In the meantime, we're getting more machines to keep us up and fast!

Thank you for your patience.

Live on Wikipedia: Jennifer Dunn dies: "At 9:12 a.m., minutes before P-I reporter Neil Modie learned about Jennifer Dunn's death, and before it had hit any news site or could be found on a Google News search, the former Congresswoman's death had already been reported on Wikipedia.

Its source? It was added at 9:19 -- a breaking news alert from Twitter."

customize your own Twitter shirt using Reactee. Pick colors and choose your text. Might be a fun way to get more followers at a conference or party.

Apple will be hosting a Media Event on September 5th, 2007 at 10 AM Pacific. New iPods are widely expected and macrumors will be twittering from the event. Follow Macrumors on Twitter and get the news before the people who report the news.

71Miles review of Monterey, CA. Tiny micro-vacations to nearby spots are a good time especially when it's half the price.

here's the Twitter profile.