Re: 59,000 hits to non-functioning web-site infuriates users

From: Chris Ulrich <culrich_at_mail.cydian.com>
Date: Tue 29 Jul 2003 09:22:24 -0500

>The site received 59,000 hits on May 29 & 30, 2003--which would have been
>great--- if the site was working. Such was NOT the case.

Quite sad indeed....

>Potential financial impact that could be associated with 59,000 hits over
>a two-day period.

This would be purely speculative, and unless you can prove damages with real
accuracy, you could not collect damages. Chances are, you can't.

>Can you 'calculate' a financial loss because of disastrous results that
>occur when, after two years of planning, preparation, expenditures, plans
>for advertising, creative expenses, trade shows, etc., you 'hire the best'
>to design incredible software, etc. to launch the site properly--- and still
>the outsourced software prevents the site from working? Thus, 58,958 initial
>customers are lost on the first weekend, etc.etc.etc.; forget the
>word-of-mouth factor via e-mail.

Well, you don't have two years of losses. You have the loss of value of the
one advertisement which drove 59,000 people to an offline website. Whether
you could get the money for the ad is a question to look at. Will largely
turn on Terms of Service (TOS) and contracts.

>(2) unless someone actually writes an e- mail to complain, the software
>FAILS to record an e-mail address. Of the 59,000 hits, fewer than 1% wrote
>e-mails, so we can only contact 42 of them. (Dumb or dumber?)

This is normal. Do you think the system will automatically capture the email
address of everyone who visits? That hasn't happened on the web since 1994.
Unless people volunteer their addresses, you won't get them.

- Chris




Received on Tue Jul 29 2003 - 09:22:24 CDT