Washington Post:
Faster Forward: Amazon crumples from 'technical problems'
By Rob Pegoraro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 30, 2010; 12:52 PM
Did you notice anything strange about Amazon yesterday? Like, say, an inability to browse or buy at a site that exists only for those purposes?
It wasn't just you. The Web retailer's site had some sort of bad-hair day, or at least afternoon. The problems stretched from its home page, which showed up mostly blank, to such individual listings as this week's allotment of free MP3 downloads, of which only a third or so were available.
Would-be buyers deprived of their usual way of avoiding work took to another popular work-avoidance tool, Twitter, to gripe. One friend wrote in mock indignation:
"Amazon.com still hosed. Am I seriously going to have to get dressed and drive to Target for a Kindle sleeve? Shopping in clothes is so '80s."
The outage ended within hours and wasn't as bad as a June 2008 meltdown that briefly wiped clean the entire Amazon home page. But it still made for some embarrassing stories.
So what happened? Amazon has yet to mention yesterday's hiccup in any of its Twitter feeds or on its press page. A query to a publicist this morning drew this response from Drew Herdener, the Seattle firm's director of communications:
"Yesterday we encountered technical problems on our U.S. website. The site is now back online."
Oooh-kay. That explains everything, doesn't it?
Or not. [link]
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