B.T.W

By Eileen Yu

By the way, ZDNet Asia has more to say

Back to basics

Posted in By The Way by Eileen Yu on Friday, December 29 2006 01:39 PM

weekly roundup I must have made twice as many phone calls in the last two days than I did in the last month alone, not to mention the several number of visits to the fax machine as well. No doubt, many business users across the region must have had similar experiences this week.

The widespread disruptions to Internet communications began late Tuesday evening after a major earthquake off Taiwan's southern coastline severely damaged seven major submarine cables linking Asia to the United States and Europe. Millions of Internet users across the region, including China, Japan, Malaysia and Korea, were kicked offline as the major carriers scrambled to reroute their traffic to alternative cables. While Net access was gradually restored yesterday, connections remained slow as the remaining functional cables struggled to cope with the additional load.

But, the news must go on and it's back to basics--lots of phone conversations and faxing of media queries to the relevant parties. Ironically, Singapore Airlines just last week announced that its phone and fax check-in services will be terminated from Jan. 1 next year, and recommended passengers use the airline's Internet check-in service.

With my mobile phone glued to my left ear, I realized what I didn't miss from the pre-Web era--having to deal with terse replies and testy PR and corp comm executives. Press relations officers, often placed at the frontline of any crisis control, would understandably have been stressed out this week from having to deal with no e-mail and Net access, not to mention being pounded by the flurry of media queries on how their companies are resolving the network downtime.

But while I empathize with the trying situation that they're in and the strain they're under, it can be terribly off-putting and frankly, quite disconcerting when those who are unable to handle the pressure turn their frustration on the other party.

Cold as they may seem, and at times abrupt, e-mail messages effectively hide any mood swings and the ill-effects of a bad day the other party may be going through. Once again, three cheers for the Internet!

How was your company affected by the Taiwan quake?

In other news this week, find out why Dell Computer has become a bit of a nag and how an anti-spam service ended up in the junk bin. Microsoft tries to resolve a stirring dispute over the security of its Vista platform, while Apple Computer's own security problems come under the spotlight.

ZDNet Asia's site and newsletter services were also affected over the last two days by the network disruptions but are now gradually returning back to normalcy. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. The team would also like to wish all a merry new 2007!

Disclaimer:
Views and opinions expressed in this blog are the author's, and do not necessarily represent those of ZDNet Asia.

Talkback 1 comments

The Internet disruption in Asia can also affect companies in other regions. My own company, Nielsen Norman Group, is a case in point, even though we are located in the United States.

We are planning our first usability conference in Asia since the bubble. In contrast to 2001, we are now relying 100% on the Internet to promote the conference: we have no printed conference program - instead all the information is on the Web: www.nngroup.com...

Normally, this strategy works fine, because all our customers are heavy Web users. However, if the customers can't get to the website, then they have no way of finding out more information about the event, and no way of registering. (The registration form is also only available online.)

Luckily, the conference is not until March 5-9, so the Internet connections will be reestablished in time for most people to register. (It's a law of nature that people tend to register for conferences in the last moment.)

For now, we have taken the action to stop our online advertisements for the conference in Asia. There is no reason to pay for clicks, if the result of those clicks will be an error message instead of the conference website.

We pay per the click, and that price is the same so far. One could imagine trying to negotiate a lower rate, but this kind of problem was not foreseen when we agreed to pay the amounts we are charged. Of course, there are fewer clicks, and thus a lower cost right there, but the problem is that there is less value from those clicks that do happen, because users are known to leave websites faster when the response times are slower.

Posted by Jakob Nielsen on Thursday, January 04 2007 08:39 AM

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About the blogger

Eileen Yu

Eileen Yu began covering the IT industry when Asynchronous Transfer Mode was still hip and e-commerce was the new buzzword. These days, she gets stirred up over issues concerning Internet regulation, intellectual property rights and software patents, online privacy and data protection. Eileen is senior editor at ZDNet Asia, where she oversees the business tech news site.