Re: Superbowl success?

[George Herbert <gherbert () crl com>]

> Not necessarily a major Internet event, but it appears superbowl
> releated web sites did well this year.  According to Keynote's
> press release http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000202/ca_keynote_1.html
> only one superbowl advertisor web site out of 35 was inaccessible
> during the superbowl.
>
> I didn't notice any significant correlation between the network
> provider and the performance of the web site.
>
> Are folks getting better at predicting advertising generated
> traffic?  Or are people just massively over-provising their
> web sites, and praying?

The following is off the record and I cannot divulge the client's name.
Hoever, FYI...

I was managing the applications team for one of these sites.
We had little warning of the ad (found out about it via some
of the press descriptions of e-commerce sites and the superbowl
rather than from the client).  As far as I know nobody had a
real marketing prediction at traffic increase due to the ad.

Site was designed with some margins for peak traffic early next
year and has been running at predicted this year traffic in
general, about 1/3 of design capacity.  We saw a blip, but only
a small one, during game time.  It looks like people who were
watching the game were watching the game, not geeking.
Since nobody had something of the nature which would grab
typical football fan's attention (Victoria's Secret ad)
this time around, it looks like the direct impact was low.


-george william herbert
gherbert () crl com