When the computers don't work

Listener Drew a blogger of the tech PR industry drew our attention to a client's writing about the fragility of airline websites during the fog: His view companies, particularly those maintaining critical systems need to better anticipate sudden peaks in traffic and be able to cope

Of course there's always a trade-off between the cost of building a bullet-proof system and the hit in PR/business terms one takes on the rare occasion systems fall over.

As individual bloggers, podcasters and vloggers we also face issues with anticipating unexpected peaks in demand. A link from a popular website can take down smaller sites or leave them facing a suddenly high bandwidth bill. One instance of this, the so-called Slashdot effect - has prompted some innovative solutions.

But having said all this it's worth pointing out that while links from a big site are an unpredictable bonus, adverse weather, thanks to the wonders of modern meteorology is forecastable. Perhaps BBC Backstage's weather RSS feeds need to be added to a few IT manager's bloglines accounts.