Twitter disables new version of website

Twitter experienced service disruptions on Tuesday, displaying an older version of the social networking website to some users and becoming completely inaccessible to others.

A message on Twitter's Web page that provides updates on the service's status said: "We've temporarily disabled #NewTwitter. Our engineers are working on re-enabling it and we'll update you shortly."

Twitter, which allows users to send short, 140-character messages to groups of "followers," has more than 200 million registered accounts and has become a popular communications service with businesses, celebrities and protesters in the Middle East.

Last month Twitter announced that it had moved its infrastructure to a new home at an undisclosed location, which the company said would allow it to constantly "stay abreast" of its capacity needs and provide greater reliability.

But a custom-built datacenter in Utah that was meant to house Twitter's gear has been plagued with problems, according to people familiar with the matter, forcing Twitter to move most of the site's operations to a facility in Sacramento, California instead.

Tuesday's disruptions meant that some people were using the version of the Twitter site that preceded a redesign unveiled in September. Other Twitter users were unable to log on at all, and were greeted with a page informing them that "something is technically wrong" and promising to have things "back to normal soon."

A Twitter spokeswoman said the company had no details to provide beyond the statements on its special technical status Web page.

Sachin beats Amitabh Bachchan on twitter

Amitabh Bachchan may be the megastar of Bollywood, but his draw of 37,500 fans on the first day of Twitter was far less than that of Sachin Tendulkar at 79,000.

Tendulkar was bitten by the Twitter bug early this month, while Amitabh joined Twitter Tuesday and got plenty of welcome messages from various celebrities.

But the 67-year-old, who regularly writes on his blog and also has a mobile blog and a voice blog, is excited with his first day's experience on Twitter.

"Day 1 on Twitter, Day 757 on blog, Day 138 from the year... endless days of love and affection to those that count and follow... love," Amitabh posted on his Twitter account.

"33,341 followers in a few hours of starting! Tweety baby I love you!! Keep it rolling," he added.

Currently the actor is following his son, Abhishek and Sachin on the site.

US astronaut sends first 'tweet' from space

An American astronaut has sent the first "tweet" from space after getting a personal Web connection on the International Space Station.

Timothy "TJ" Creamer, a NASA flight engineer, sent the Twitter message from his @Astro_TJ account.

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s," Creamer wrote.

NASA said Creamer was the first astronaut to send an "unassisted" Twitter message from space.

Previous "tweets" from space were actually sent by astronauts by email to the ground and support personnel posted them to their Twitter account.

The US space agency said Creamer was able to use Twitter directly because a software upgrade this week gave astronauts aboard the space station personal access to the Internet via what NASA called the "ultimate wireless connection."

The new communications system gives astronauts access to the Web and will provide them with "direct private communications to enhance their quality of life during long-duration missions," NASA said.

Two other astronauts aboard the space station, commander Jeff Williams and Soichi Noguchi of Japan, also have a Twitter account at @NASA_Astronauts.