Can the Internet handle big breaking news?

16 hours, 21 minutes ago

CNET News' Tom Krazit and Declan McCullagh debate whether the tendency of Web sites to stagger under high demand can be avoided, or is even that big of a problem.
• Jackson popular on iTunes, YouTube
• Google thought traffic was attack
• Sites swamped after Jackson death

It happens time and time again: when news breaks, the Internet slows.

It's quite obvious at this point that the Internet has muscled its way into the lives of anyone who needs information. And Michael Jackson's death Thursday had as great an impact on the Internet as anything in the history of the medium that didn't involve the World Trade Center.

The statistics are amazing: Akamai said worldwide Internet traffic was 11 percent higher than normal during the peak hours between 3 p.m. PDT and 4 p.m., when news of Jackson's death was breaking. That traffic forced even Google to its knees for a brief period of time Thursday afternoon.

Can a system that has trouble keeping up with ever-increasing demand for its services be considered a reliable source of information when a true crisis emerges? After an editor banished a budding argument between CNET News' Tom Krazit and Declan McCullagh from a company-wide mailing list, we decided to let them fight it out here.

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