lots of commentary about that. it's lovely, but in the end the birds are flying in opposite directions. "I suggest panic." - matt shobe

that is now called "the fail whale." - Robert Scoble

lol@Robert I didn't know that -- Funny, yet appropriate, awesome. - Shey, Jamaican of FF

the birds are Ev and biz handling someone a little bit fat... you see who I mean ;-) - directeur

twitter's team told me that is what they call it. - Robert Scoble

I wish I could click "like" on a comment. I'd totally like the "fail whale" comment. - Eric Florenzano

The whale is cute, but I still liked the lolcats more: http://tinyurl.com/5afyts - Jonathan Leavitt

A whale being supported by tweets. Nice. I like it - S Adler from twhirl

A guy I know actually made some fail whale t-shirts tonight! Nice. http://zazzle.com/bluebird7 - Vincent X

Hehe, I was calling it the fail whale yesterday. Didn't know the twitter dudes actually called it that :O *sigh* Wish I was original :D - Mo Kargas

Twitter should have a "Downtime Art Contest" kind of like Threadless. Every time they go down, users that aren't twittering should draw what they think should be the "Twitter is down" picture and post it on Flickr. Everyone can vote on the favorite and Twitter could use it the next time they go down. It would be win-win. Twitter users would be kept busy and would just move the community over to Flickr for a period of time. Twitter builds good will by using the picture and they don't lose users to FF. - Cathleen Rittereiser

Soldier A: It could grip it by the tail! Soldier B: It's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios. A five ounce bird could not carry a 100-ton whale. A: Wait a minute, supposing eight swallows carried it together? B: No, they'd have to have it in a net. A: Well, simple! They'd just hold it in their beaks. B: What, held under the maxilla, below the nares? A: Well, why not...? [King Arthur rides off] - Karim

This illustration is by this artist from istock. Credit where credit is due :) http://www.istockphoto.com/user_vi... - Michelle Riggen-Ransom