The Best and Worst Reward Ever By Erica Sadun On Sunday, March 26, at about 2 a.m. (Pacific), Twitter users were treated to a delightful surprise: The site was briefly filled with cat photos. It was a huge deal, but it should have been. It was a "bug" rather than a feature -- one that many have speculated has been in the code all along, but which was introduced into a live version of Twitter.com. But the good news is, this was actually an unintended bug that did not result in a significant privacy breach. And while the cat photos themselves were quite entertaining, the resulting response from Twitter users was overwhelmingly negative. By Sunday morning, you could have heard a pin drop in America. But cat lovers and meme aficionados everywhere were talking and tweeting about nothing else: This is a bug. We’re investigating. — Twitter Engineering (@twittersupport) March 26, 2009 This cat photo is ruining twitter forever, if they don’t fix this, twitter is done. — Ryan Sheckler (@rrsheckler) March 26, 2009 I love this new feature! We must have it! Cat lovers unite! Let's go wild for cats!! http://t.co/WpZs8G0 — Mark O'Connell (@mark_oconnell) March 26, 2009 I think this is kind of awesome but seriously though Twitter should be about what is trending not what amuses us! #catloversrock — Kevin (@Kev_o_l_n_Tronic) March 26, 2009 My cat just took over my Twitter feed. — Tim Duffy (@tfbucket22) March 26, 2009 But for all the cat lovers out there who were hoping the feature would enable cat photos for the masses, sorry: It's over. Instead, on March 26, Twitter released a statement: "Unfortunately, the cat photo incident is the result of a bug. The cat is no longer on the logo, we're investigating what happened, and are taking steps to fix it." Twitter has promised to deliver a fix by April 13, by which time I imagine the cat lovers will be celebrating and the rest of us will have missed the deadline, so I won't be shedding any tears for Twitter. For now, Twitter users can continue to enjoy their cat photos. As the number of cats goes up, the number of updates goes down -- to about 1,500 tweets per second on March 26. But we can thank "Twerking" Willow Cat for this fun way to see more cats. Meanwhile, other companies are more worried about their own, less savory cat photos: That's OK. We also have an email service, if you prefer to talk about @dudes_only. #haha #not — Twitter Support (@support) March 26, 2009 The world is ending, as we know it. So in your honor, here are some cat photos for you to enjoy: -- E.A. About the author: Eric W. Dolan is editor at large of CDT, and has blogged on technology and politics since 2004. He was an editor and reporter for the Washington City Paper, editor in chief of the New York Press, and editor of the paper's print edition. Dolan has appeared on local and national television as a commentator on politics and technology issues and was a founding moderator of the community discussion site re:publica. Reader Comments I'm totally into Twitter but I don't like what happened at all, I mean, what could happen to a company to make them decide to implement cat photos instead of what people want? This is crazy, I hope they are going to fix it as soon as they can and that they understand what people expect from them. That is just TOO funny! I mean, this totally makes sense. I don't think I would care if they went and implemented an update like this, because cats are super cool, but of course, the cat lovers out there are really gonna hate that. I am still excited to see that tweet storm come through as well. It might be weird, but it did increase twitter users. It showed that people (myself included) can't get enough of cats and can't wait for new updates from this service. If anything, Twitter's management could have handled it better, but for those who were frustrated, you still have me. I am here and will be around as always. It was also funny because it was a glitch, but so close to a new upcoming update... Cats are really a big thing. I wonder why? But I am glad that they are starting to "get it", as I can only say that a lot of people enjoy this stuff, and want something for themselves. Twitter doesn't seem to care about it, but as a user, I understand how much people like cat photos, even me! =D. I wonder if people will continue to keep using Twitter? I know that I will! =D. Keep up the good work! (Cats and everything)! I don't care if it was just a bug or not, I still love it. If this is a bug, they should hire cats and set them loose on the place. They should pay attention to what the users actually want and not what they think they want. When will they wake up and realize that everything is in quotes? You have to understand what people need, and not what you think they need. If this would have been a flaw that was an actual update that they would have left alone, then yes I would have felt differently. If it had any effects on twitter, then yes it would be a flaw. But this has nothing to do with twitter. They wanted a cat, so they got a cat. That was a bit funny. I'm not sure what that cat is doing there, but hey, if there are people who like it, then they should do it. It makes the site seem more alive and lively, that's the whole point of the site: to talk and interact. The fact that it was there without you knowing about it shows a very well designed website, because that site has been able to identify that this is an actual issue and fix it. Well done! Honestly I didn't really think about it that much, but this was just stupid. Now that I think about it, it's just hilarious. Twitter is all for cat lovers, so of course this would have happened. The funniest thing is that it was an unintentional update to the site. But hey, if Twitter thinks that it's the right move then I can't really argue it. They wanted a cat and so they got one. The only problem is, it's a very obvious cat. "If there are people who like it, then they should do it." You got it. Also the website is really very, very well designed for what it does. It should not have taken an update like that to make the company understand that you really want more updates. "I knew this post would never get to the front page." You should try your hand in making a blog, you'd be much more qualified than the writer of this article. I just wrote a reply about an hour ago to this article and its been deleted... how rude is that?! I wanted to ask people how they got to their opinion that twitter was better than Facebook. Is it the fact that there is a cat on their logo and twitter was being hacked? That's it? Twitter has some great features, but they need some better search capabilities. So many people can't find things or can't find what they are looking for in a long time. Facebook is a better search engine. Facebook's search lets you search based on who you are following and those who your friends are following. I don't think Twitter needs anymore changes or additions, they already have the best features around! :P