Political Sites Scale Up For Election Traffic

miller60 writes "News sites and political blogs are expecting extraordinary traffic tonight as Americans track results of the Presidential election, and are scaling their infrastructure to meet the challenge. Yahoo anticipates its Election Night traffic may be three times the volume seen in 2004, when it had 80 million page views on Election Day and 142 million more visits the following day. Hosting companies say customers have been ordering extra servers and load balancing services, while content delivery networks are also expecting a busy night. Will traffic approach record levels? Akamai's Net Usage Index, which tracks traffic to its customer news sites, is one metric to watch."

TV Viewership will go down?

[xmas2003]

Since so many people are checking online, I bet TV viewership goes down - be interesting to compare and see how strong an inverse relationship it ends up being.

I.e. in the old days, everyone would watch the TV anchors drone on so they could hear a snippet what each particular viewer was interested in. But using pull (instead of push) technology, you can zoom in on what you are interested in much more quickly and efficiently.

P.S. In the meantime, I'm support the HULK for President! ;-) [komar.org]

Re:TV Viewership will go down?

[dmomo]

It's funny, this ability to pull info like that. Like you said, we used to wait for that snippet of information. Now that I can get it right away, I find myself constantly refreshing looking for change in the data. I look at the numbers and watch the votes come trickling in. Still, I want more data. It's a weird obsession. The more we get, the more we want. Oddly, no matter how much there is, I always feel a little unfulfilled. Can one be addicted to information?

Not Just the US

[whencanistop]

To be fair, Yahoo will have to cope with all those people outside the US (yeah, I know - we don't count) who are looking for detailed analysis of the result that they just can't get on TV.

I don't know why you'd be checking Yahoo! news though. Surely you'd opt for one of the news organisations that has a history of journalism (eg BBC or Reuters).

Maybe it is just me.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:I just want a bell

[fishbowl]

>All I want is something I can subscribe to that will "ring" when the election gets called.

December 20, I believe, is the date that the Electoral College convenes in the Senate.

All we have until then, amounts to "reasonable assurances" that we know how the EC will vote in the Election.

Winning the at-large election today will certainly be cause for celebration for the supporters of the candidate who wins, but this is still no guarantee that today's winner will be elected, only that electors who are pledged to that candidate will meet in the Senate on Election Day in December.