Twitter usage this year as more people discover the service. During major events -- such as the -- it has bogged down, although thanks to staff and infrastructure investments.

As for the cause of the current glitches, some twitterers are attributing them to a system overload caused by heavy use at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

But Twitter cofounder Biz Stone today told The Standard that the festival probably wasn't to blame. "We don't point fingers at events for the most part as they need to be massive and global even to stand out in our activity logs," he said.

Stone added that he hadn't noticed the latest problems himself, but that "as Twitter grows and scales we do discover opportunities for subsystems to be improved."

Still, the strange behavior gives pause for thought. While it does not mean a great deal to , do ?