Some users of Twitter, the addictive microblogging service, noticed that it abruptly stopped working for them over the past 24 hours. The reason? An abrupt switch away from Joyent, the company which hosted — past tense — Twitter's servers. Companies change Web hosts all the time, and the moves are always wrenching. But Joyent and Twitter had just happily announced that they were working together to keep Twitter up through this Sunday's Super Bowl.

Webhost Joyent, partially funded by Facebook board member Peter Thiel, is going to offer free hosting to Facebook app developers. Apps will load faster and allow developers to write code without significant out-of-pocket expense. For apps with 10,000 or fewer users, this service will be more than enough. Once an app grows large enough, the thinking goes, the developer can fund their own hosting — ideally with Joyent. [GigaOm]