Into The Forrst

A quick note about Promoted Posts.

When we launched Promoted Posts back in December, we had no idea they’d become so popular so quickly. (Un)fortunately, that put us in an interesting position where the initial system we’d built quickly became inundated with posts — a good problem to have, certainly, but not necessarily for our users. We’ve been working extremely diligently over the past few weeks to re-architect the system to much better handle the amount of posts coming through. To that end, we’ve temporarily disabled promoting new posts — existing posts will still run normally.

The new system works a bit differently: you purchase Acorns and hit “Promote” as usual, but now your post will enter a queue. It’s designed to ensure that only a limited amount of posts run at any given time, and as one post drops out of rotation, a new post takes its place. We’ll soon have enough data to show you exactly where you are in the queue, and when you can expect your post to go live. It’s a first in, first out kind of system.

So, for now, we need to focus on clearing the existing queue before we enable promoting new posts again. When the new system is ready, we’ll turn promotion back on. There will also be a way to “double down” to jump the line — for extra Acorns, you’ll be able to move your post to the front; great for posts that are time-sensitive.

I’ll also be crediting all users whose posts are in the backlog with Acorns commensurate with the amount they initially purchased. I realize that it’s a small show of our apologies, and I’m very sorry for any inconvenience caused.

I’m really excited about the new system and I hope to have it fully deployed soon.

Thank you, Kyle