This morning on the Today Show they had a topic called, “Finding Lost Money.” During the segment they talked about a website where you can find out if you have unclaimed money. Being that I am an internet dork and I am poor, I grabbed my laptop and went to missingmoney.com.
Of course, the site was basically shut down by the Today Show mention. The servers were probably ready to handle 10-100 queries per minute with no problem. But when the segment told millions of viewers they could find free money by simply putting their name and state into a database you can imagine this poor little server going… “OK, everyone form a line!” The only problem is that on the internet there is no line. As thousands of people hit “submit” to the database at the same time… it freaked out and shut down.
Two lessons here.
- While this is an internet age, mass media is still quite powerful. While the internet is a fantastic way to spread a message about a product, service, church, or whatever… mass media is still mass media.
- Be careful what you wish for. Sometimes when you are small you think… “If I can just hit a homerun and get my name out there to the masses, it’ll be great.” Of course the real question for that scenario is… “Are you ready for the masses or will the masses shut you down?” Are you prepared to handle a massive response to your product, services, church, or whatever it is you are trying to get out to the masses?
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