Kyazoonga.com, the website selling tickets for the Cricket World Cup final in Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium in April, crashed seconds after they went on sale yesterday sparking furious complaints from fans. Nick Bond, web performance specialist at web traffic management company Zeus Technology, looks at the implications of such a high-profile crash.
Not only does this mean that sales stopped while they tried to get the site back up and running, but as a result of these web performance issues, Kyazoonga.com suffered from serious backlash on Facebook.
Partnership with a big sporting event like the Cricket World Cup is a brilliant opportunity for online ticket sellers as it brings new customers to the website.
But things can quickly turn sour when the huge volume of traffic exceeds the website’s threshold and causes slow loading times or, worst of all, a crash.
Some peaks in traffic can be predicted, and a rush of visitors when sought-after tickets are released is a no-brainer.
It’s crucial that sites have an intelligent solution in place to cope with peaks (both expected and unexpected), because if a customer’s first visit to a website is hindered by poor performance, they might not bother to come back.
Social media platforms like Facebook mean that negative publicity about a brand spreads incredibly quickly and can be very difficult to control. This is why it is so crucial that there is open communication between marketing and IT, so that sites remain robust and reliable, especially during busy periods.
By Nick Bond
Web performance specialist
Zeus Technology
www.zeus.com
