So Cyxymu clearly ticked off the wrong Russians. We got that. But 30 million users taken offline, security teams at Twitter, Facebook, and Live Journal scrambling to fend off the attack, all just to get one guy? That's the really chilling part.

The other big story that emerges from this is how dependent many of us have become on social media. It's not just folks who live or die by their favorite celebrity tweets. (FYI, spent yesterday at the beach, where she collected "many beautiful shells," while continues to shower in "the undying support and enormous love" of her fans. Now you're all caught up.)

Hundreds of startups are entirely dependent on Facebook and Twitter. As writes:

If you think the combined stuttering of Twitter, Facebook and this morning...were rough for you, well, try dipping into the shoes of the developers who make software based on Facebook and Twitter APIs. Sure, you missed all of Ashton and Demi's tweets for a few hours. But for devs, the two goliath social networking services are their livelihoods. And what's surprising is how Facebook and Twitter left them completely in the dark.

Job seekers, Web marketers, reporters, customer support teams, political protestors in oppressed countries -- the list of folks who rely on Twitter is long and not entirely frivolous. Like it or not, in a very short time Twitter has become very important. As told the , when she sent her usual morning tweet yesterday and never got a response, she was stunned: