Websites that failed us

In the last 2 days, I have witnessed the rise and the fall of the websites that had their potentials, yet did not come through. I suppose I wouldn't be so critical of the Future Shop/Best Buy boxing day sales this year.

Having worked with website companies for couple years, it is quite amazing to realize what's involved in all of this, and how a company can ever handle unprecendented unexpected traffic volumes. It illustrates how important load/stress tests are to simulte every possible worst case.

Example #1
The Leading Hotels of the World chain offered a $19.28/night sales to many hotels around the world, starting Oct 1 8AM EST


Guess what, the site was a classic example of not enough preparations as it never worked since 8AM.
I don't believe anybody got in (via SlickDeals, FatWallet, RFD, etc... everywhere)

The messages I got since 8AM were (in order)
Sorry! Due to the overwhelming number of consumers currently trying to access this promotion, your request is being delayed momentarily. Please be patient, don’t get discouraged, and retry in a few seconds by clicking here, or by going back to http://www.lhw.com/1928.

Thank you for your interest in the 1928 Promotion.
We regret to inform you that the more than 6000 room nights available at the start of this promotion have all been sold. Congratulations to the lucky participants who were able to get a reservation as part of this great offer!

Due to the overwhelming number of consumers participating in this promotion. We regret to inform you due to technical difficulties beyond our control the 1928 promotion has been suspended indefintely.

See the Press Announcement by the CEO
Ted Teng, President & CEO, The Leading Hotels of the World, Ltd. stated: "Today we suffered a catastrophic technical failure, which is uncharacteristic for our highly respected brand. We should have been better prepared and we weren't. We disappointed many people and I apologize for that. We intend on making every effort to restore our customers' confidence."

Example #2
The Canadian National Do Not Call List was under severe load since Sep 30, the first day of operation.
Yesterday I constantly get the "No Service available, please try again later" and every newspaper media has covered this failure since yesterday. Another example of bad publicity