iPad coverage leaves Internet in a spin

by Stevie Smith - Jan 29 2010, 05:24

Any lingering doubts regarding the popularity of Apple and its product portfolio were officially quashed this Wednesday, when the gadget maker unveiled the iPad tablet computer in San Francisco and promptly brought the Internet to its knees.

More pointedly, as Jobs & Co. were regaling gathered journalists with the wonders of the multi-touch iPad, micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter was struggling to keep up with the sudden surge of accompanying tweets, while live-blogging service Cover It Live was also hit squarely in the solar plexus by twice the amount of expected traffic.

“It’s been a tough day for us and our customers,” offered Cover It Live president Keith McSpurren while talking to PC World’s JR Raphael after Apple’s event. “We’ve got smart people who generally try very hard to make this thing work, but we didn’t even see the breadth and depth of today’s coverage.”

According to PC World’s report, a number of Twitter posters commented that prominent technology blogs such as Engagdet and Gizmodo were periodically inaccessible on the morning of Apple’s grand unveiling.

Similarly, Wednesday’s sudden increase in Web traffic saw online users reliant on Level1 Internet Services forced to surf at a crawl. The company even highlighted Apple’s iPad Launch as the specific reason for the compromised access in a support note posted to its site.

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