“Twitter is currently down for planned maintenance”

Is this the message displayed on the screen when you try to log in twitter?

Twitter is currently down for planned maintenance

I know, it’s frustrating for avid tweeters to remain away from twitter for long. Here are details of the maintenance program due to which twitter is down now.

As per official twitter status update on 31st July,

Twitter’s hosting provider, NTT America, will begin scheduled maintenance at 11:00PM PT*/06:00AM UTC. This maintenance will last approximately five hours.

During this maintenance, there will be periods of time when some users are unable to use Twitter. We do not expect these periods will last for the entire maintenance window.

*[11PM PT is 7AM GMT.]

Such maintenance was a requirement for the site to upgrade its servers as recently twitter marked the 20billionth tweet. We have to pay this ‘small price’ for a better tweeting experience in the future.

As the update clearly states that twitter will be down for 5 hours, you will not be able to use the social networking site in these hours. But as the last line of the update says, you may not have to be away from twitter for all 5 hours. So, take a break from tweeting, celebrate and enjoy ‘Friendship Day’ and experience some time without twitter. By the way, don’t forget to check in regular intervals if the twitter is back. Have fun.