Did you get a weird notification from Airbnb this morning? If so, you’re not alone.
The firm appears to have accidentally sent a ‘test’ alert to users around the globe, in what software developers suspect was an unfortunate employee blunder.
This kind of notification may well have been intended for a ‘test’ environment, rather than the ‘live’ product. This is a kind of sandbox where developers can try out changes without actually altering the code behind a live app.
Although Airbnb hasn’t yet confirmed exactly why the notification — titled ‘Test’ and containing only the words ‘test dev’ — was issued, social media users made light of the likely error.
Twitter user Tushar Gupta wrote: ‘Dear @airbnb intern, you are testing on production. Take a coffee and start again.’
Richards, who writes the ‘Overnight Sucess’ newsletter about start-ups, told Metro: ‘My heart goes out to whoever accidentally pushed out that notification in the live environment,
‘It’s also a tragically wasted opportunity to say something funny to millions of people everywhere.’
Software developers expressed sympathy for whoever was behind the alert.
Startup founder Daniel Habib tweeted: ‘Let’s pour one out for the @Airbnb dev that is getting ready for their first SEV review.’
A SEV or ‘site review’ is a meeting where such an error would likely be discussed.
James Ivings, co-founder of notification-limiting app Leave Me Alone, told Metro.co.uk: ‘It can be easy to make this kind of mistake, especially when time is short and deadlines are looming.
‘This happens to everyone at some point in their career, so the unfortunate culprit can rest assued that every software developer that saw this notification had a look of sympathy on their face.’
Raz Ilin from data visualisation start up Chartbrew told Metro.co.uk: ‘Forgot Airbnb exists, so thanks to this notification I opened the app again to see if there is some new design to get ‘inspired’ from.’
Metro.co.uk has contacted Airbnb to find out exactly what happened.
But whoever was at fault, at least they weren’t the man that accidently sent a incoming missile alert to the residents of Hawaii.
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