Sitdiary.net
Sitdiary
| Language: | PHP w/ Smarty Templates |
| Database: | MySQL |
| Javascript: | jQuery |
Sitdiary started back in 2001 as a very simple idea: I wanted other people to be able to post blog entries about anything they wanted. What started as a small idea soon grew into a user-base of over 250,000, where at its peak had over 100 users online at any given time.
Time after time, the bandwidth wasn't enough for this "small" site and I was forced to continuously upgrade on a monthly basis. At one point, the cost became more than I could handle and that's when the popularity of the site started to take a downward turn.
As the site would be out of commission for days at a time, the user base soon dwindled down to around 50,000 and all of a sudden, bandwidth wasn't too much of an issue.
Of course, if I knew then what I know now, I would have done quite a few things differently. For one, I would've chosen a catchier name. Secondly, I would've added some serious caching to this site to reduce overall demand on files and database. Thirdly, I wouldn't have built the database in such a fashion. When I started building Sitdiary, I figured the best way to build the database would be to give each user their own tables for: entries (posts), comments and friends. While this might work well for a few thousand users, the method quickly degrades over time as it is an unnecessary waste of space. Fourthly, I would have added a payment plan for the really dedicated users to help pay for the bandwidth costs.
Since then, I've upgraded the database to a more standardized format and after testing the speed before and after, I can tell you that the standardized format is significantly faster. I've also added page caching using Smarty.
Overall, I'm glad Sitdiary is still running despite its bumpy and uncertain past.