• by June 7, 2002

StreamingSites Fail in Crisis by Ken Liebeskind, MediaPost Staff Writer Workers sitting in their offices on Sept. 11 without TVs turned to the Internet for live video feeds of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but many of the sites were down due to overcapacity. When visitors did get to the sites, the stories were slow to load and had been stripped of video content.

The situation suggests that streaming news sites can’t handle a national crisis, and yet this crisis was so severe it is perhaps a special case. “In the history of the web, there has never been an event like this,” says Steve White, chief technology officer of MSNBC.com.

He says the number of visitors to the site and the number of page views they requested crippled the system. The site tried to use Akamai, which hosts content for streaming news sites and had worked with MSNBC.com during the presidential election, but it took a few hours to load the content to its servers. Visitors got response error messages when they tried to load stories, forcing them to load them again.

MSNBC.com also “flattened the site,” according to White, transforming pages into normal static web pages without dynamic content, in an effort to speed up the site. The result was a loss of the video content users hoped to see.

ABCNews.com and CNN.com also reported trouble and took action to solve it. Both sites increased the server capacity and flattened their sites. ABCNews.com removed ads from its site “because we didn’t think they were appropriate and it made the pages serve faster,” says spokeswoman Lauren Capp. CNN.com also pulled graphics. “We were down to almost text to get the information out,” says spokeswoman Elizabeth Barry.

Despite the problems, the sites reported record use. CNN.com has a normal weekday average of 14 million page views, but got 300 million Sept. 12. MSNBC.com reports four times the amount of traffic and six times the number of page views in the days after the attacks. ABCNews.com had an average of a quarter-million viewers accessing streaming video.

One site that avoided problems was FeedRoom.com, which archived material on its site and broadcast intermittent streams, which allowed it to continue operating and avoid a crash.

Joe Laszlo, a broadband analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix, says the Internet performed reasonably well during the terrorist attacks, with websites staying up and email operating. Meanwhile, most other media and communications, including tv, radio, and cell phones, didn’t operate for periods of time. “There was a problem with distribution of rich media,” he admits, “but this happens anytime there is a traffic spike online.” The fact that so many went online for news shows that the Net is “proving itself as a place to turn,” he says, “and it will rival TV. But I’m not sure it will ever be a place for live rich media news events. I always see problems cropping up.”

EmailMessages of Horror and Hope by Susan Breslow Sardone, Contributing Writer September 11, 2001, the morning started normally: a cup of hot coffee, a quick survey of the day’s initial email. That’s how news of the first World Trade Center attack reached this writer. A flurry of messages from an active listserv, all with the same subject line—Re: Is Everyone Okay—arrived before 9 a.m. Alerted to switch on the TV, I watched the disaster unfold. Like many Americans, I spent the next few days volleying between the TV screen and computer, desperate for news of who was safe and how to help. The Internet became essential when phone lines failed. Verizon, the leading local service provider, was acutely incapacitated. Its switching center near the Twin Towers, which handled some 200,000 telephone lines, filled with dust and debris, making calling a hit-or-miss affair. Its wireless offshoot lost 10 transmitter sites. Cingular Wireless lost six such cell sites, and Sprint had four wireless facilities damaged. Email and instant messaging, transmitted across dedicated high-speed lines and cable modems, emerged as reliable ways for New York survivors to communicate amidst chaos and destruction. An employee stuck in a building blocks from the World Trade Center told Wired News, “Email is best—I’ve been using AOL Instant Messenger to contact friends and have asked them to call my family.”

At Yahoo, a spokesperson reported an unprecedented increase in traffic. With servers at many major websites taxed by heavy usage, pages loaded slowly. Cut-and-paste emails from the few able to access such information broke the news to many. Functionality that allowed viewers to email news stories as text or links also helped get the word out. Bulletins from media companies such as CNN.com and NYTimes.com announced the news to their email subscribers. Some publications, including the Los Angeles Times online, encouraged readers to submit email addresses to receive disaster updates. Chicagotribune.com endeavored to connect to its community by soliciting feedback to the following question via email: “What will the Sept. 11 catastrophe do to the national psyche? How will the United States change?”

Soon, more than facts began to circulate: Misinformation and urban legends surfaced on bulletin boards and through mass emails. “Did Nostradamus Really Predict New York Attack?” a Yahoo News feature debunking the prophecy myth, became the most-emailed story by readers eager to disseminate the straight story. Legitimate how-you-can-help emails from ISPs, individuals, and other sources also made the rounds. They were trailed by spammers, some of international origin, attempting to exploit emotions and solicit funds for bogus disaster-relief efforts. The FBI was alerted to those activities.

Meanwhile, leading companies in the email industry began pooling their resources in a coordinated HTML campaign to drive donations to the American Red Cross and eight other charities aiding victims of the terrorist attacks. A joint effort by NetCreations, 24/7 Media, Yesmail, ValueClick, MyPoints, SmartReminders, Sendmoreinfo, and Magellan was expected to reach some 40 million consumer and business email recipients worldwide. “Most Americans are desperate to help any way they can,’’ stated Rich Maradik, CEO of SmartDM, parent company of emailer SmartReminders. “Email is such a powerful medium that allows for direct contact and immediate response, allowing us as an industry to leverage millions of dollars quickly to charities.” And in a time of disaster, it proved to be the most vital channel of communication for millions.

WirelessNew Lifelines for Many by Adam Bernard, MediaPost Staff Writer Cell phones and other mobile devices were the main mode of communication for a lot of people as the World Trade Center attack unfolded on September 11th—but only until the first Trade Tower fell. Wireless, which would show its strong points for the first hour, showed some of its major limitations throughout the day. With the towers down, most everyone in the New York City area lost their ability to call anyone. Cell phone service throughout Manhattan was interrupted, and even regular phone service was congested, forcing many callers to dial repeatedly to get through. AT&T shut down its entire phone and communications system in Manhattan.

In an earlier development that highlights the importance of local efforts to improve wireless service during crises, the city of San Francisco claimed it will be unable to offer a required new service for locating people making emergency calls from cell phones, because wireless carriers have not deployed the necessary tracking technology. “We have sent a letter to every single carrier requesting that they begin deploying wireless 911 in the city,” said Jo Ann Hicks, project manager for the city’s Emergency Communications Department. “If they are not ready, they are breaking the law.” Definitely a situation to keep an eye on. And in Seattle, Cingular Wireless launched an advanced wireless service that will give customers improved wireless access to the Internet with speeds up to 10 times faster than currently available. The new service, which uses GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology, will let customers move between an Internet session and a phone call or text message without having to abandon their Internet connection. The GPRS service, which introduces packet data transmission technology into Cingular's existing wireless network, also provides an “always on” Internet connection.

iTVSet-Tops Offer New Ad Opportunities by David Cotriss, Contributing Writer As we head toward the end of 2001, new advertising capabilities are beginning to appear in various set-top boxes (STBs) used by viewers to interact with their TVs. While often viewed as a way to obliterate ads altogether, many industry experts believe more relevant and targeted ads are a positive development.

One PVR often cited as a way to eliminate ads, TiVo, is expected to announce the “next generation” of advertising services to make ads more interactive on the service. Interactive links could be placed into commercials or programs to direct users to personalized content. TiVo already has advertising deals with Coca-Cola and General Motors, among others. The company is also negotiating with AT&T Broadband to install TiVo technology directly into cable STBs, expanding the capabilities greatly. AOL Time Warner also plans to release an AOLTV box with TiVo functionality in the near future.

With the trend toward integration of TiVo and similar services into STBs, competition is heating up. In November, SONICblue plans to release four new ReplayTV-branded STBs featuring 320 hours of digital video recording time, more than any other current STB. The boxes feature DSL connectivity, making them competitors of Microsoft’s UltimateTV and TiVo. The boxes will include an “AutoSkip” feature that skips commercials when viewing a recorded show. With prices ranging from $699 and up (compared to $300 for TiVo), it is not known how widespread adoption will be. Whether any advertising capabilities will be offered is also unknown, but it will be interesting to see if they follow TiVo’s lead.

Philips and Microsoft also announced a new STB that works with ACTV’s “SpotOn” targeted advertising system. Data collected into personal profiles remains on the STB to maintain viewer privacy, and ads fitting individual viewer profiles appear on the screen at appropriate times.

Meanwhile, iTV research and deployments continue around the globe, offering potential new advertising opportunities. Britain’s Independent Television Commission will be conducting the first “Go Digital” pilot project starting next April. 300 volunteer households will be provided with equipment allowing for T-commerce and other iTV services to help determine adoption rates.

The last month has also seen some crossover of Internet capabilities to the TV screen, including Cablevision’s plans to offer a search engine to help viewers navigate the wide range of programming available to them. It is not yet known whether the order of results will be influenced by advertising dollars. The engine could compete with interactive program guides (IPGs) like that of Gemstar, which offer advertisers prime space and could provide new IPG ad options in the near future.