Amazon Collapses Under Weight of 1,000 Xboxes 162
theodp writes "Is there such a thing as a BusinessWeek Cover Jinx? Amazon was bitten by the success of its 1,000 Xboxes for $100 promotion, which brought the entire site to its knees for about 15 minutes on Thanksgiving Day. Singing the too-much-traffic blues on Black Friday were Wal-Mart and Disney."
They should have known better (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They should have known better (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not that difficult to hard-code "People who buy X-Boxes also purchase" into the .HTML description page. Granted, it might not be optimal, but it works enough - at the very least, include links to hard-coded pages that sho
Re:They should have known better (Score:4, Interesting)
Seems to me like that'd have been the perfect time to launch a malicious DDOS aimed at those big online retailers. Kinda like how some jokers went around supergluing locks the night before.
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No Chance (Score:1, Redundant)
It would have been different if at 2:00:23PM EST it said it was sold out, but not. It might as well not have been on there at all, because getting that deal was pretty much impossible. I wonder how many of the winners were on Amazon's network?
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Re:No Chance (Score:5, Informative)
I had two networks to choose from: Comcast cable modem, and a supposedly "slower" SBC DSL connection. I ended up using the DSL as Amazon went unreachable on the cable modem at 5 till 1 (CST). At 1:00, Amazon was taking 10-20 seconds to load, but it did load. I clicked, answered a simple math question ("what's 18 + 19" IIRC), and it gave me the "you've got it" page.
I'm still shocked I got it, especially since I'm in Chicago, not on the west coast.
Re:No Chance (Score:5, Informative)
Screenshots: (1) The question [ngsam.com] | (2) The denial [ngsam.com]
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Only 1000 people got the code. 1000 is a very small number, and it's unlikely that many of those 1000 happen to visit the same online hangouts that you do.
This whole thing is rather absurd (I'm speaking more to comments on the linked page rather to your specific comment - excuse me while I blather) - a bunch of people got their hopes up, against tremendous odds (it wasn't a small number of people who knew about this deal. I was at lunch and a lunc
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The lottery is a tax on people who can't do math.
Where does this come from? I've spouted it before (when I was much younger), but it's just wrong.
The lottery is:
A. A tax on people who want to dream so much that they wouldn't do math if they could.
B. Perfect for people who can do math.
Look at it this way. Much like blackjack, the lottery is a game with history, in which the odds/payoff ratio varies over time. If you bet the same amount every time you play, you'll end up losing out (the payout on the lottery doesn't climb as quickly as the money that goe
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A mathematician would look at his Expected Value as it pertains to game theory. As such, yes it may be that in certain situations there is +EV, but they don't exist in reality. This is due to the fact that MORE people would play, cutting down on what you could possibly win (splitting pots, etc).
If there ever comes a time when there is +EV for a play in the lottery, then I guarantee that the lottery would cease to exist -- the pot would change. The people running the lottery kinda pay attention to that. Ac
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It's utter nonsense to say that "MORE people would play," to cover your bases on this one. Yes, more people will play, but that is merely a pressure on the game. It is not a forced constraint. In John Corbett and Charlie Geyer's writeup based on expected play of P
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I did neglect the fact that in certain situations, the value will exceed the odds. That's a good point. So yes, at certain points in time EV goes positive. (assuming odds of picking powerball winning numbers is 146,000,000:1. [5 from a bucket of 55 balls, 1 from a bucket of 42 => (5!/(55*54*53*52*51))*(1/42)] )
However, this is also simplifying in looking at a single all or nothing scenario, meaning that it would take many many iterations before this would hold true. However, the number of bets needed t
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oops, also you forgot to include taxes in your calculations. It was so long since my original post, I forgot we were talking reality vs academic, and taxes are so very very real :(
So, the number of times the payout * .4 (fed + state) > $146MM is even lower. Your $365MM big win drops to about $185MM lump then $111MM. So, you can only play in situations where the published number is what, $480MM?
Nevertheless, your point that the lottery can in some situations will have +EV still stands. You just are
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I think it's safe to say that we're both safe from winning (or playing) the lottery any time soon.
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This is quite possibly the least informed statement I have ever read here. If you have defended the lottery with "payment for a bit of a thrill", you might have a valid point. However, attacking those with "no concept of risk/reward" is more than a little bit of a projection. Feel free to l
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Twice now you've failed to rationally explain your unique vision of risk reward. Ah, maybe you simply don't understand the word rational. Yes, that must be it. Hey, why don't you reply again with your argument that $2 is very little money and therefore no matter how low the chances and how short a human life is, there is still a viable risk/reward scenario.
Who thinks that
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You really don't put any thought into your replies, do you? People that pay for home insurance do so because they ca
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And that brings us full circle to my point: The odds need to be taken into consideration.
Thank you,QED
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Disabling images is common sense... until they throw a captcha (or other critical graphic) at you that you need to see to claim the prize.
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I don't think so. When I couldn't load the page in my browser, I tried telnetting in on port 80 in order to do a raw GET of the URL. I couldn't even connect to enter the command.
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Here's the kicker: it came up at around 11:01 AM PST. Sold out.
The article is missing the Amazon link!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
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You want the blues? (Score:5, Funny)
. The guy will probably protest it though.
THIS should be a Slashdot story... Submit it (Score:4, Informative)
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And for the seller... Sucks to Be You!!
Re:You want the blues? (Score:5, Informative)
I forget what the legal defense of this position was, but it seemed airtight. Anyone remember offhand?
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Re:You want the blues? (Score:5, Funny)
Almost as funny (for different reasons) was this guy [ebay.com] selling a PS3.
Check out some of the pictures. What's with the fish?
Re:Not moving the merch (Score:2)
Amusingly, on the updated eBay page [ebay.com], he's removed the pics of his girlfriend, but retained the fish photo. Maybe he'll throw in some fresh fish filets:
Butthead eBay gouger : Hmmm, I'll make a quick buck by gouging some desperate fool
Bu
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Inconsistancy (Score:3, Informative)
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Typical (Score:2, Insightful)
And of course it was the tech team which ended up spending its holidays fixing the site, not marketing. (You can probably tell that I am taking it a bit personally and for a reason...)
Re:Typical (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ah yes, that famous conceit of IT workers... That, somehow, *they* are the ones who decides what is good for the company and what is not, based on whether or not *they* will be inconveni
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They can work a weekend to write the code...
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Even the apple store (Score:1, Interesting)
..and now this! (Score:4, Insightful)
On a serious note. They knew this was coming. It was marketed heavily and they should be ashamed for not being prepared to handle the onslaught of refreshers.
Re:..and now this! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid promotion anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
That would bring more traffic to their website and keep it there all day. Much better idea!
Oh wait... Hmm....
Re:Stupid promotion anyway (Score:4, Interesting)
Marketdroids, by and large, act like spoiled children. Attention-grabbing stunts are all they do. It works to a limited extent - insofar as it keeps people talking about Amazon. It may not be particularly effective, but nobody ever accused marketdroids of being very smart.
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Add onto the "Black Friday Blues" list... (Score:1)
Surprisingly enough, Circuit City loaded perfectly fine. Does this say something about it's popularity, or it's hiring practices for IT?
Using my top notch Slashdot analytical methods (Score:1, Interesting)
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18 hours. Not bad for non-government work...
price (Score:2)
Woot.com happens all the time. (Score:5, Funny)
Hey wait a second. When was the last time a Microsoft product cause a VOLUNTARY distributed denial of service attack?
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Apple Store too? (Score:2, Informative)
I've never heard of the Apple Store going down under a high load, but it often goes down briefly when product or price changes are made. I figure it didn't go down due to high traffic, but this is a rather long outage, compared to most updates. But still, it should be givi
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And whoever moderated the parent as offtopic, please RTFSubmission, it talked about Amazon AND WalMart AND Disney going offline due to heavy traffic. These online stores are the big guns and if they go down on Black Friday, it's new
'beta test' ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which leads me to think: was this a beta test for this EC2 system? I mean, there's no better bait for the millions of youngsters out there than a cheap top-o-the-line console. What better way to stress test your system than to have 100s of 1000s of people hit your site at the same time? If Amazon has logged the traffic data (and they'd be incredibly stupid not to), it would be a gold mine for their engineers. Eventually expect them to offer just such a service which can handle the such spikes, and pitch it to the Best Buys and Walmarts of the the world.
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Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft paid Amazon to have this deal (Score:4, Insightful)
No I don't have proof, but having the most prominent retail website in the world hawk your product is worth a lot of cash. The $100 special gets reported by multiple media sources, "1000 Xbox 360s sell out in 9 minutes", "Demand for Xbox 360s brings down Amazon's website". If Sony wants the headlines of people going crazy about the PS3, why wouldn't Microsoft want the same? Does anyone believe that 10 minutes of poor connectivity will hurt a website's reputation? Server problems yes, super cheap deals no. "Oh no, too many people are coming to our website for the great, great deals!" People are going to associate Amazon's name with amazing one time sales, which is only going to help them. Both Microsoft and Amazon have benefited from this sale.
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Re:Microsoft paid Amazon to have this deal (Score:4, Informative)
And I doubt amazon even lost much money. Supposedly MS are now making $70 profit for the premium system, and likely much more for the core system. Seeing how some retailers are dropping $60-$100 off the premium package already (dell.com for instance, once you put it in the shopping cart) I would expect a retail price drop in 3-6 months, probably $360 for the premium (what dell is currently selling it for) and $260 for the core.
And I suspect Microsoft wasn't alone... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the email I sent to the Associated Press after they reported the $100 X-Box 360 deal in a story, but failed to mention the number of consoles Amazon had for sale at the discounted price:
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Actually, I managed to get the confirmation page by 11:00:15, but I somehow didn't notice a little "I agree to these terms" checkbox before I clicked through. The confirmation failed, and I had to do it again. If it wasn't for that extra
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Collapse (Score:4, Funny)
Packaging (Score:2)
Ah, that's the true reason for one-click (Score:2)
That, and it also explains why there's no link in the story - we don't want to slashdot Amazon again, do we?
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Exactly like Madman's AU$10 DVDs for 10 Hours sale (Score:2)
The Truth is... (Score:2, Informative)
I think it did the job (Score:2)
Even considering shipping and customs (no less than 100 dollars I think) It was a hell of a deal...
Oh, after that, I browsed around the site and bought "World War Z" and planning to buy "I am legend",
100 behemoths (Score:2)
official response from Amazon customer service (Score:4, Funny)
our web site.
First, please allow me to express my sincere apologies for any
frustration that has been caused. It is certainly not our intention
for our customers to have anything but a pleasant experience at our
store.
We are working hard to provide a stress-free and convenient holiday
shopping experience at Amazon.com. Unfortunately, we have not met
that standard in this case.
Please note many customers voted for customer vote program and were
waiting to place their orders at 11 A.M. This caused high network
traffic and hence our web site was slow.
We utilize top of the line servers, internal routers and network
connections. Although we often wish we could avert this problem,
many issues regarding speed are actually a result of complex
routing patterns over the Internet itself. Even the best Internet
services can't get around this fundamental problems.
To help prevent this problem in the future, you can reset your
cachesize. Go to the "Cache" or "Temporary Internet Files" option
on your web browser (in Internet Explorer, go to "Tools" and
choose "Internet Options"; if you use Netscape, go to "Options" and
choose "Network Preferences"), and make sure you have your memory
cache set to 3000 kilobytes, and your disk cache set to 5000
kilobytes.
For instructions on clearing your cache on other browsers and
platforms, please consult your browser's help documentation for
details on how to manage this process.
We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the
customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we
are unable to address customer's concerns. I hope you can understand
our limitations in this regard.
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Apparently I struck a nerve? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they could've faked it, and then just relied on an overloaded website to avoid having to give out any real deals, but why would they want to have to deal with the potential PR problems if that truth got out? It would be beyond foolish for this to have all been a scam.
30 seconds at ground zero (Score:2)
Now, why whould they do this?
If they got a couple million people on their site as a result of this insanity, they only need to get about $0.10 per customer to make up for what they lost on the promotion. Well worth the m
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A bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the fraudster lures in customers by advertising a good at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute good is. The goal of the bait-and-switch is to convince some buyers to purchase the substitute good as a means of avoiding disappointment over not getting the bait, or as a way
Re:Heh. (Score:4, Interesting)
Hours? All 0.25 of them, you mean? I mean holy shit, it says 'About 15 minutes' right there in the blurb.