While many celebs were busy making last year’s “Worst Dressed” list (cough, cough, Lady Gaga), one company was diligently compiling a list of its own that comprised of some of today’s most well-known corporations, and has nothing to do with fashion faux pas.
Apica Systems – a company specializing load testing and performance monitoring solutions for cloud and mobile applications – has put together a list of the “Seven Most Stunning Website Failures of 2011.” From Apple (News 
- Alert) and Target to Disney and Bank of America, the load testing company was sure to not leave anyone out – even the A-listers.
“This year's list proves that ongoing website failures and performance problems are costing companies lost revenues and damaged reputations,” said Sven Hammar, website performance optimization expert and CEO for Apica. “As you can see, even the biggest in the business are suffering. When a website goes down, an online business has effectively shut its doors and is left wondering 'Will that visitor ever come back?'“
According to Apica, the following high-profile events and their respective crashes were damaging enough to garner some unwanted attention in 2011.
Tickets go on sale for London 2012 Olympics: After London went to extraordinary lengths to covet the 2012 Olympics hosting gig, fans anxiously waiting to get their hands on the 2.3 million tickets available were unfortunately greeted with a message: “Sorry, we cannot process your request at this time.” Sorry, London, but you wouldn’t even score a bronze on this one.
Hurricane Irene relief website for New York City: New York City may be equipped with the finest firefighters, police officers and law enforcement officials, but this summer’s website crash of the government-hosted Hurricane Irene website did not help its case. After NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (News - Alert) encouraged residents in the immediate area to use the website for updated information on the hurricane, the website crashed amid overwhelming visitor volume.
Launch of Missoni Collection on Target (News - Alert).com: Target suffered a fashion faux pas of its own when the highly anticipated launch of the Missoni Collection sparked a website failure due to high traffic. The website was unavailable for hours and then experienced a repeat crash six weeks later during another rush of visitors. The crashes were far too frequent, and much too long, for fashionistas clawing for Missoni’s high-fashion, discounted pieces.
iPhone (News - Alert) 4S launch: Perhaps one of the biggest releases of 2011, Apple iPhone 4S launched in early October, only to down the website and slow it considerably, while simultaneously stalling upwards of tens of thousands of new phone purchases. Let’s hope we don’t see a repeat performance for the iPhone 5, whenever it makes an appearance.
Bank of America monthly fee: Following the announcement that Bank of America would enact a $5 monthly fee for account holders who make purchases to their debit cards, already angry Bank of America customers experienced raised tempers, and probably even higher blood pressure, when the bank’s website crashed due to high traffic. While the fee looks to be out the door, wouldn’t it be nice if we could charge them an extra few bucks every time the website fails on us.
Disney Store launches limited-edition Princess Dolls: To the delight of parents and little girls alike, Disney’s favorite princesses, from Belle and Ariel to Snow White and Jasmie, now come in doll form. But, when the limited edition of this dolls collection was launched back in October, Disney.com suffered as almost many crashes as there are dwarfs in the Snow White fairy tale.
H&M launches Versace collection: Similar to Target, H&M suffered a hit when customers were greeted with “We’re sorry, we are experiencing large number of visitors at the moment, please try again later.” Let’s hope H&M, which is known for its high-fashion clothes at lowered prices, will be better prepared next time.
So, what does Apica recommend these A-list companies do this year to avoid making the 2012 line-up? “Website failures and performance problems can be minimized greatly by simply, conducting on-going testing and monitoring to avoid being the next big failure story,” said Hammar.
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Tammy Wolf is a TMCnet web editor. She covers a wide range of topics, including IP communications and information technology. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
