Debate: Can the Internet handle big breaking news?
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
Twitter went down (which never happens!), so obviously, the Internet simply can't handle the demands of delivering the news.
OK, I'm calmer now that I've got that out.
He mentions a few websites going down (which is not "the internet") and he falsely claims google had trouble (which still wouldn't be "the internet" even if it was true).
But this is a systemic problem with the Internet, or perhaps put more accurately, the Web. The more people who demand the service provided by an information Web site, the harder it gets for that site to provide that information
Yeah right. Actually that's a systemic problem with that particular website then, not with the internet. He completely misses the point about the distributed nature of the internet: "Big breaking news" spreads like wildfire across many sites. So when CNN (not the internet) buckles under load then there is a good chance that you'll still be able to fetch it from a few thousand other sites.
I was under the impression that Google's problem was due to an automated attack response, not due to bandwidth issues.
Also, the article cited: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10273325-93.html has been updated to say that only CNN "appeared sluggish." It may be true that the news on the Internet was crippled, but there's basically no hard evidence suggesting it from the source he cited.