Slashdot Mirror
Are Internet News Sites Ready for Major World News?
An anonymous reader asks: "Heading says it all really - are Internet news websites ready for the next big world event? news.bbc.co.uk already switches format under heavy load (not sure if this is automatic or not) and i'm sure some other sites do the same. But should a major world event take place in the coming months/years, the Internet is going to be the primary news source for many millions of people, particularly those without access to a quality television news service. How will / can it cope?"
Certainly when the events of September 11th took place, for those of us at work in the UK without a television at hand the only way to keep up with events was via the web.
News sites failed to cope with the load - millions of people trying to access the same sites meant that no amount of bandwidth could cope with demand.
For this reason, I don't think that the web is going to replace television as a source of live news coverage anytime soon.
How many people have internet access, but no access to TV, radio, or other broadcast recievers? For major news stories boardcast medium will always be the main method of disseminating information to the masses, client-server systems aren't really designed for this purpose.
Cheers,
Ian
They can do it the same way I cope when my power goes off... A cheep battery operated shortwave radio tuned to the BBC or other quality station. IMHO, I'm pretty sure if they can't get access to a TV then what chances do they have at getting the internet?
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Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
It was Larry Niven who predicted the idea of "flash crowds". Of course, he was envisioning physical crowds via teleportation, but the basic idea still holds. It's only going to get worse as more and more people use the net.
Look at it this way: in a primative society, a clan or village would usually have a storyteller or sage who gathered the news of the world in story form and re-told as appropriate. We should not be supprised that it takes millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions of people to be the story-tellers to 6 billion (that's a US billion).
If the Internet had a higher percentage of useful sites for news (not just talking jpeg-heads, but innovative ways of conveying the STORIES that the news represents), then no one of them would be loaded down and the backbones would be the only bottleneck. Notice that so many of us flocked to Slashdot when the towers fell? Wonder why? Because Slashdot, for good or ill, is our community's storyteller, and we instinctively come here to understand how our community is reacting.
Folks,
If you don't have a portable AM/FM radio, or even better a shortwave receiver, then get one TODAY. Get some spare battteries for it as well.
The simple fact is if you want to hear what's going on during a "major event" radio is the best way to do it. And you have evacuate in a hurry, you sure as hell aren't going to be taking your 60" flat screen TV with you. You want pictures, wait for the evening news, if you want to know what's going on NOW, get a radio.
Even better, get yourself licensed as a ham radio operator so you can be part of the communication solution if needed (yes, amateur radio is still important, even today).
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
> you might not get the actual site it links to
If you can't get to the site, how can the Google spider?
To state the obvious, the major news sites would have to have not only leaner pages, but also have the infrastructure to withstand a slashdotting-with-hair-on-it. Leaner, lower bandwidth web pages benefit every one, every day, but for daily needs the infrastructure is going to be expensive overkill.
In contrast, more of the tech sites were already used to heavy loads and I would guess that his brought in a larger than normal number of new and infrequent visitors. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed that after that many mainstream newspapers, magazines, and radio magazines started to carry more cutting edge tech info and topics and providing in a much more timely manner - days instead of weeks or months.
It would be interesting to map how much the coverage and timeliness of tech issues by the mainstream press changed, when it changed, and how much was related to being able stay on line.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"Information wants to be paid"
Multicast news services worked well during 9/11 and there is no reason to think that they won't the next time. Multicast is specifically designed not to "melt down" under extreme changes in audience.
The trouble is that not everyone is multicast enabled, but this shows real promise in handling news and emergency information over the Internet.
The "major catastrophe" it is designed to survive is something that physically destroys or isolates many nodes of the network. This was a simple traffic spike.
the Internet is going to be the primary news source for many millions of people, particularly those without access to a quality television news service. How will / can it cope?
Huh?? I'm not sure what you're talking about but I'm pretty sure I don't recognize it. Quality television service is much more widespread than the Internet. I'm N. American, but I've lived for years in Africa and Asia. I can assure you that in "None of the above" has the web surpassed broadcast media as a source of news for any but an elite few. And the comment is irrelevant for the elite since they have access to "all of the above"-plus.
Seriously, even in the smallest, poorest villages around the world several people will have radios and access to VOA, BBC, a national broadcast network and one or two regional stations. In addition most villages will have at least one television.
The internet is a bit player if it's a player at all
But should a major world event take place in the coming months/years, the Internet is going to be the primary news source for many millions of people, particularly those without access to a quality television news service.
Please be advised that your set needs adjusting... It's pretty clear from the evidence (and from a phenomenological point of view if you observe your own reactions) that the experience of watching a major event on television as it unfolds barely qualifies as useful information, due in part to the nature of the medium, but largely due to the nature of media filters and techniques. When you see something like 9/11 going on, it's much closer to entertainment, unfortunately, than providing one with reconnaisance leading to rational behaviour. The drama of the moment helps you develop powerful emotions in relation to the event, but what kind of info do you really get?
When it comes to war, TV obscures. For instance, see this study on media and the gulf war. [Remember that? Oh wait, it's still happening.] A salient quote:
In other words, you'd actually be better off combing through usenet than sucking on the immediacy of the glass teat.
Qualifier: I've worked in media-democracy-oriented film/video for years, I'm involved and devoted to the medium!
Damn those pesky terrorists
Unless it's on slashdot, and then there's bound to be 17 moderators who mod it down for the hell of it before people start realizing it on their own.
This makes a very good point. Multicast won't work with a static (request, responce, close) connection like websites (because you won't necesssarily have people downloading the same content at the same time)... but it works great for streaming content. Theoretically, if multicast were implemented properly and universally, it would be easier on bandwidth and server load for everyone to view streaming video than static websites (because the server only needs to send out one multicast stream, except if you hit a limit as to the number of destinations that a packet can have).
Interesting to think that streaming audio and video could be easier on bandwidth than websites...
--Dan