Traffic Surge / Server Upgrades / Donations for Monthly Server Fund
A moment just to update everyone on the situation with the unexpected surge in traffic we have been experiencing over the past 24 hours.
We have been hard at work optimizing key areas of our platform as well as caching areas that we feel are currently receiving the brunt force of the spike. What else can we say, it isn't like anything we have have ever seen before! There is just so many of you hammering down on the front page and if we disabled the invite system we would end up being consumed in a matter of seconds. While we are thrilled and very excited to let everyone join the Snapzu community we must stand behind the difficult decision of keeping the service invite only but online and available to those who are currently our members.
Over the past few hours we have been pouring over a half dozen server specifications and concluded that we need to setup dual database servers with a load balancer to handle the MYSQL database side of things as well as a powerful new front end server to more effectively run Apache. The total monthly cost for these servers will go up from our previous 134 dollars/month to a new total of 368 dollars/month. Which brings us to our next subject.
Ever since we soft launched Snapzu in 2012 we have always maintained that we can come together and afford to pay for the hosting as we grow and expand our platform. As a team of passionate people we have always believed that if we just work hard enough then something great will happen. Today is a confirmation of that work ethic and we are very excited at what the future may bring.
We ask for anyone able to contribute to our monthly server fund of 368 dollars to do so now. All donations will go towards our monthly quota and any leftover funds will be used for next month's funding goal. Those of you making a donation, please be sure to include your email or username so we know you are for future functionality. Thank you!
Paypal Donation Email: donations@snapzu.com - Snapzu Bitcoin Wallet: 16ziiUD2vK5Kn7t4Kbk4GNgyd9bqvKwAtd (first time using bitcoin, hope this is right!)
Update: 61.60 / 368.00 raised thus far! We are in awe of such generosity coming from total strangers. Truly inspiring!
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Update 2: WOW! We have already surpassed this month's funding goal in less than 24 hours with a total of 489.40 / 368.00 donated across Paypal and Bitcoin! We thank each and everyone of you for being so generous, you folks are truly amazing! There was a suggestion of creating a kickstarter style funding page so we will look into that as it would surely take the stress off if we were able to raise enough funds to cover the server costs for a full year and even use a part of the funds towards a dedicated server admin. Moving forward we consider all options and figure out what's best, but at this point we are just ecstatic that we can setup powerful new hardware to make this place go fasterrrr!
Join the Discussion
Have you considered starting a Subbable or Patreon fund?
Patreon's not a bad idea. I'm sure plenty of people want to avoid paypal and don't quite know how to send bitcoin
I'd like to see a Patreon fund. I'm not fond of using paypal if I can avoid at and am not setup for bitcoin anything but patreon is something I've been watching and just haven't seen something I really wanted to donate to.
And that's coming from a True American Legend from America.
I agree. I would love to help. I find it amazing you all were handling it yourselves. I have never used bitcoin. Is there an alternative?
Patreon would be a great idea and because of the nature of how it is set up it could be used as a great way to keep contact with the people who do donate (monthly backer newsletter and all that).
I recently supported my first patreon. It's a nice idea, but are there any articles available how they handle the money? I know that all platforms including Kickstarter had some hiccups at one point. I'm fine with PayPal, but I would use Patreon as well.
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/t/nginx instead of Apache - And that's not me being tech-arrogant, we and a lot of the internet changed from Apache to Nginx a while back and haven't looked back. It's amazing when it comes to doing really obscure performance optimisations like offloading the traffic of a certain tribe to specific servers weighted to a higher load than other smaller tribes.
$20 inbound.
http://i.imgur.com/O77MCHu.png
Second that. First thing that caught my eye and came here to share that advice as well. Superior to apache when traffic gets high.
Just sent $20
Just sent $5. Does anybody know how to set up a monthly payment on paypal, or does that have to be something that the business offers?
You have to set up a subscription like thing (snapzu would have to) on Paypal and you subscribe to it.
Went ahead and donated $10. Is not much but I hope it helps. Keep it up Team Snapzu!
Ok here it comes.
Be really careful using something like Paypal to receive donations. Once you get large enough they just freeze your funds and you're left without recourse because they are not technically a bank.
Look into processing payments using Stripe.com and sell something like SnapGold or whatever - you are no longer beholden to a company like Paypal just deciding to keep your donations. Loving this site so far!
Do you have any plans for accepting Bitcoin for donations as well?
The blog post mentions it, though they're new to bitcoin.
The blog post didn't mention it originally hence my question. Last night when the comment was made it just listed their Paypal address. :)
That said, I am very glad to see that they added Bitcoin as a donation option.
Excellent. I was wondering if there was going to be something to donate. I'm in the middle of moving countries, but I can spare a few bucks for this site. It's really great, so far.
You'll probably have less headaches and get better performance and redundancy out of a MySQL cluster over a load balancer in front of separate databases. You may get some good fronted bang for your buck by going with Cloudflare too.
Maybe have a Google Wallet set up as well? If that's not possible I'll try to figure out how to paypal via email; never done that before for some reason.
Go to Send Payment and just put the donations email in there. On the next screen it will say that you are sending funds to "Snapzu Media" or something like that.
Donated because I really want to grow a community of my own here :)
Donated $18. Hope Snapzu becomes 18x more popular :D
Ten American Bucks on you way, guys.
Sent a small amount hope it helps
Just donated $10, keep up the great work.
I will donate after payday.
Sent a donation using PayPal.. I am not too keen on paypal though.. if someone could write a guide on what's the easiest way to send a bitcoin donation, that would be much appreciated :)
I will donate something as soon as I can. Definitely want this place to grow.
Donated
Donated
Donated. Keep it up guys.
Please consider doing a Patreon campaign for funding. I would seriously back you in a second as I'm sure would a lot of others.