late last night I emailed the tech support of the coveritlive folks (the ones who produced the liveblogging software. Apparently, some of you weren't allowed in to view the liveblog because it was at capacity. Site meter told me there were up to 18 people viewing during the debate. So I was concerned about whether this would be worthwhile--if it an only handle 18 people, not a very effective "mass media" tool.
Their response:
Hi Charles,
My name is Paul Crawford. I am the Manager, Quality Assurance of CoveritLive. As a precaution last night due to readership that was 5X larger than last weeks’ Presidential debate, we held back any new readers at different times so that we could ensure the tens of thousands of readers and the writers using CoveritLive could stay online without interruption. Although blunt, it appeared to do the job. We hope the times we need to use this technique are few and far between but feel it is preferable to a flat out crash of the entire system.
Because our service is a relatively new one and many new large users sign up each week, predicting readership from one marquee event to the next can be challenging. We always try to keep our available capacity at 3X our previous largest day which up until now has served us well. We expect to bring significantly increased capacity online over the next 48 hours well in time for the next Presidential debate on October 7 and well in time for the election day in November.
Please feel free to contact me directly with any additional feedback or questions.
I'm taking that to mean that although they are expanding capacity, it'll likely be the same for the next debate. So, I'll start livebloggig an hour earlier, and that'll give me more time to set-up the panelists, approve commentary, etc. and let everyone join in the fun early. I imagine if you're viewing early, you won't get dumped.
What the hell, it's worth a shot.
Chuck
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