About Who Unfollowed Me

Hi, I'm @cjgraphix, and I built who.unfollowed.me. Somewhere in 2009, after another unfollower tracker stopped working, I created the software/script/service to tracking my unfollowers. I let a few friends in on the project and at their urging I put the website up for the public to use.

Version 1

Launched way back in February of 2010

What does a freelance web designer/developer do for their 31st birthday? Launch a website of course!

The user adoption rate was slow but steady, and getting the word out happened one person at a time. Then I added the option for people to tweet about their unfollowers and the adoption rate exploded. First hundreds, then thousands, and tens of thousands of new daily users were making their way to who.unfollowed.me... and tweeting about it. This was the first time I broke a server based on traffic, which would occur a few times over the years.

Version 2

The Introduction of the Pro Plan

The initial "proof of concept" was working, people were excited and the community was growing... so were my hosting fees!

Six months after launch, version 2 hit with the introduction of the Pro Plan. For a few dollars a year, the site would offer a few more options then the free (Lite) plan didn't offer. To this day, I'm humbled every time someone purchases Pro.

Awards season rolls around and I'm nominated for both a Mashable Award, and a Shorty Award. In the Mashable Awards I lost to HootSuite, and in the Short Awards I lost to ColourLovers. In both cases, just being nominated was enough for me. I even ended up on the front of the technology section for my local newspaper and was featured on the local news station. My kids were impressed!

Things sat around for a long time. Features were introduced, and some were removed (at Twitters recommendation). With Twitters new API being released, it was time for a completed re-write for the backend of who.unfollowed.me

Version 3

Breaking the Internet

I'm not talking about KimK's milk covered rear end here either, I really broke things.

While the new version brought on a lot of new features, what it didn't do was scale... so it broke, completely... on Thanksgiving. I spent the holidays re-factoring pieces of code in the hopes that a fix could be found. After a solid month, the site came back online to all users.

Version 4

Let's Try This Again

I'll let you know how it goes ...