Tempo Follows Mailbox, Implements Reservation System To Handle Demand

Two weeks ago saw the launch of the iOS app, Mailbox. It plans to revolutionise how we interact with email, which brought it to the attention of a lot of iOS users. With attention comes demand, and with demand comes a lot of load on servers. So to handle this demand Mailbox thought of a rather ingenious solution, a reservation-based system that allows users to wait in line before they can use the app, letting in a limited amount of people a day to ensure a lot of load is being put on the servers. For the most part its worked, with just one outage in the two weeks its been live. However, another app by the name of ‘Temp’ is employing a similar method so it too, can handle the ‘continued demand’.

For those who don’t know, Tempo is a similar app to Mailbox, and it too has to handle a lot of user data on its servers. Data that could easily pile and topple over if there is too many people on one of its servers at any given point. The data in question is largely contact, calendar and email, that it uses to notify you of useful information throughout the day. Whilst the app is a calendar, its what it does with the data thats most interesting.

Say you’ve entered a calendar entry for a specific location, Tempo can use location services associated with the calendar entry and combine it with relevant data from Foursquare or Yelp, and essentially create a profile of the site you’re heading to, giving you driving directions and even suggestions of where to park. It also gathers contact information about the people attending the event, giving you suggestions of people you might need to get in touch with.

For most of these start-ups the reservation system is seen as a cost effective way to not only grow their apps at a steady pace, but their business as well.  

Its a lot of data that the app has to handle and compile through its servers, and in order to make sure that its always reliable for users, Tempo are saying using a reservation system similar to that of Mailbox, where users can sign up for a position in the reservation line and Tempo will email the users once the app is usable.

Tempo says there is waiting list of ”well over 100,000 users” – 1000 to 3000 of which get access in under on hour, which is better than Mailboxes 100,000 per-week. It probably isn’t the best experience for users to effectively wait in a queue before they can use their app, however its probably better than the app failing to work altogether for a couple of days due to a flood of users. And whilst you could say these apps should be built to handle the initial demand of users before they roll out in the first place, for most of these start-ups its seen as a cost effective way to not only grow their apps at a steady pace, but their business as well.

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