ClickZ reports that ABC’s website has crashed twice while streaming two of its most popular shows, Desperate Housewives and Lost on its website.
The original idea, which we applauded here at the Blog Business Summit, was to offer the content to users for free on demand, paid for by advertising.
But ABC definitely didn’t prepare for the kind of bandwidth usage they would be experiencing while streaming the shows. What’s more, when a company spokesperson was contacted by ClickZ, she said she had no knowledge that the site had shut down.
Businesses that decide to provide content to their users this way will want to take a lesson from the ABC story. If you’re going to provide new content or a new service on your site you need to be prepared for the increased demand on your servers, and if the servers crash - for heaven’s sake, make sure your public relations department at least has a statement to make.
This vacuum of information from ABC is only going to spur the blogosphere to buzz more, and under no circumstances can that be good for ABC.
Via Digg
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