The "Our Servers Crashed" Launch/JV Technique?

[digabot]

So, has anyone noticed that launches these days (PPC Classroom, Continuity Blueprint, etc) all seem to be using the "we had so much interest we couldn't handle the volume" approach? The servers went down, blah, blah, blah. This is usually followed by additional "bonuses" that are simply ways for them to allow their friends to make offers to these same prospects/buyers.

Any drawbacks to using this launch technique?

[Adam Carn]

Big launches sometimes do crash servers. It really does happen.

Adam

[Heman Patel]

I think if you have a lot of people promoting your big ticket item then its bound to hurt your servers. Its almost like getting on the first page of Digg.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by digabot

So, has anyone noticed that launches these days (PPC Classroom, Continuity Blueprint, etc) all seem to be using the "we had so much interest we couldn't handle the volume" approach? The servers went down, blah, blah, blah. This is usually followed by additional "bonuses" that are simply ways for them to allow their friends to make offers to these same prospects/buyers.

Any drawbacks to using this launch technique?

This is not a technique, it's called not planning properly. I run 2 dedicated servers and I fullyunderstand what they can handle and what they cant. Course I am a website developer.

Because I do know what they can handle I also know what NOT to do to overload my servers. Alot of these IM planning these big launches knownothing about servers and such.. They should actually be discussing their plans with their development staff which they probably do not do in fear of their idea being stolen.

This is why it's a good idea to have trustworthy development staff that you have used over and over.

Bottom line it is one or all of the following:

* Not Planning Properly
* Lack of Communications with Development Staff
* Poor Structuring on Database or Scripts Used


Just my 2 cents

James

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Sure. It's like the case study of the new restaurant owner who ran a full-page ad in the newspaper saying that he would be unable to take any additional reservations during the month of March because March was completely booked (when, in fact, the restaurant still being completed inside and wasn't set to open until April). Of course, he was deluged with phone calls to reserve for April.

[dustinlemos]

Maybe for inexperienced marketers, but this is still common with gurus who've been putting out products for years. There's a fine line between underestimating your site's traffic during a launch and "allowing" it to happen in order to limit availability and further hype your product's value.

[Killer Joe]

My take on this tactic is that it is based on "Social Proof".

It's hard to believe after all these launches that these promotors are really that clueless about bandwidth.

What's the number one way to show your product is in huge demand?

Crash your servers.

We all know that scarcity, or being left out is a proven way to increase desire. The more we can't have it, the more we want it syndrome at work.

I have to believe that any smart marketer who knew he/she would actually lose sales by allowing their servers to hiccup would spend the money in advance for additional server capacity as a cheap insurance policy.

But what do I know...

KJ

[Paul Myers]

It's hard to believe after all these launches that these promotors are really that clueless about bandwidth.

Usually has nothing to do with bandwidth. The most common culprits I've seen are database-related, or available process limitations, or a combination of the two.

For example, I have a dedicated server that has a maximum of 2000 simultaneous processes. That will handle a huge amount of normal visitors.
If I start throwing people at a system that requires 8 or 10 processes or more per page, with some of them taking non-trivial amounts of cycles, the math can change quickly.

The more technically experienced folk can explain how they work, but there are ways to optimize these machines for the kinds of launches we see now. They require someone with serious understanding of the architecture in play, which is way beyond my level of expertise.

Doesn't take more than one botched setting to end up with a locked machine, or one that's chewing cycles as quickly as they become available.

There's a real opportunity for someone with the technical chops to make a killing managing launch servers.


Paul

[Craig Desorcy]

I'd love to have this problem/oportunity :0)

It is used as a social proof button and works well
as long as it's true. If it does happen, why not
talk about it?

I own PLF and Jeff does take about covering your butt
so your server does not crash and also talks about the benefits
of mailing your list if it does happen. Nothing wrong with
piling on the social proof if it's there.

I edited this post because I do not want to be part of the
group of people thinking "My server crashed" are telling fibs.
It does not make sense to do so as Paul pointed out.

-Craig

[Killer Joe]

Paul,

Thanks for that info. Not my field of expertise.

But I think even if you solved that problem you would still see all the crashes.

And here's why...

As a marketer if I "crash" my servers I have a somewhat "legitamate" reason to contact my list and give them "up to date" progress reports that allow me to put my product in front of them again.

And again, and again.

Each time I watch one of these launches unfold, the email updates come in at a frantic pace. If this pace was used under normal circumstances the unsubscribe rate would go through the ceiling.

So this marketing tactic is not only about social proof, it is also a ploy to get the list to allow the promoter a chance to bombard those interested in the product with additional reminders.

Not necessarily a bad tactic. I think the proof of its worth is in the continued usage of the ploy.

Is it overplayed?

I'm tired of it, but I'm not the one benefiting from it.

KJ

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Usually has nothing to do with bandwidth. The most common culprits I've seen are database-related, or available process limitations, or a combination of the two.

For example, I have a dedicated server that has a maximum of 2000 simultaneous processes. That will handle a huge amount of normal visitors.
If I start throwing people at a system that requires 8 or 10 processes or more per page, with some of them taking non-trivial amounts of cycles, the math can change quickly.

The more technically experienced folk can explain how they work, but there are ways to optimize these machines for the kinds of launches we see now. They require someone with serious understanding of the architecture in play, which is way beyond my level of expertise.

Doesn't take more than one botched setting to end up with a locked machine, or one that's chewing cycles as quickly as they become available.

There's a real opportunity for someone with the technical chops to make a killing managing launch servers.


Paul

Hi Paul,
That was my 3rd point "databases" .. Inproper built scripts and database structure because some marketers want to be cheap. Sorry someone had to say it ..lol

James

[Steve Porcaro]

I am not so sure it is a "technique" but I am surprised with the amount of money involved why would there be a problem?

However if you think in the real 3D world when something is hot, does not the same problem happen to some extent?

Were not people lining up 36 hours before the first Iphone, playstation, xbox, and of course supplies ran out?

However we have grown accustomed to not "trusting" people on the internet.

Yet I do not think anyone accuses Apple, ATT, Sony of the above infractions

To me the internet is just a medium like TV, radio, newspaper, or magazine. With Newspaper or Magazine I may never see that medium if they get sold out before I get there

[jacktackett]

My next book is Data Centers for Dummies for Wiley so maybe I should include a chapter on load balancing and send to all those gurus :-)

Paul is right; someone will soon combine the cloud computing platforms from Amazon or Google and LAMP architecture to create an on demand system for things like product launches.

Right now you can design a high availability system, but they are expensive. And unless you plan to keep it active for 1-2 years, most managed service companies won't build out one for just a few days use - and most product launches are over in a few days.

Hum, maybe an enterprising warrior could build out a system and then lease that system to the gurus for a launch - it would require some great scheduling tho - especially with the propagation delays inherent in DNS.

--Jack

[Paul Myers]

Joe,

But I think even if you solved that problem you would still see all the crashes.

I very much doubt it.

The myth of deliberately manufacturing crashes as a social proof mechanism is quite popular around here, but I've not seen anything other than raw speculation and occasional cynicism backing it up.

Let's leave out my personal experience with some of these folks and look at the motivations. What is the reasoning behind telling a crowd of people who want to give you money that they can't?

Jeff Walker's system went down within minutes of opening for PLF 2. What sense would there be to doing that deliberately?

Where is the real social proof? Selling out completely in an hour, or crashing a server and losing customers due to delays?

Jeff has always told people to have contingency plans in case of a crash, but that's because they've been so common. It's not because there's some magical reason that a crash is somehow good for business.



Paul

[digabot]

Sorry folks, this is a straight up launch tactic. PPC Classroom had a 6 server cluster. They had around 5,000 orders with staggered (private) onsales. No way that crashes that system.

In the case of Continuity Blueprint - People Crashing a couple of servers to get in on a (thin) $2000 product. Please. This is an excuse so that everyone promoting the program has additional chances to remail their lists. Also allows them to pool bonuses so that they can grab/share prospects for their own lists.

[Paul Myers]

Jack,

it would require some great scheduling tho - especially with the propagation delays inherent in DNS.

There are ways around that. That's actually the smallest concern.

A blend of 2 solid database machines, a load balancer, and EC3 would probably do it for a lot less money.



Paul

[Chris Monty]

It's just a 'build hype' marketing tactic. It does seem to work, though, so I say why not?

[Paul Myers]

Chris,

It's just a 'build hype' marketing tactic.

Okay. Since you seem to be ready to accuse every person who's said this of being a liar (as does everyone else who's posted this opinion), I would like to ask you if you have any evidence to back up this claim?

Do you know any of these guys personally?

Do you have any reason other than speculation to say they're all lying?

Can you explain how it benefits anyone to make customers wait who are at their machines ready to buy?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?



Paul

[Mystic Minnesota]

I too have gotten the "server crashed" emails, but have never had a problem accessing the sales site.

These guys spend massive amounts of time and thought(in groups)
trying to figure out how they can top the last pre-launch hype.

I wouldn't want the job!

How to come up with ever better "magic formulas"
and get the people who tried the last one to buy again has
got to be daunting.

Straight marketing ploy!

[Chris Monty]

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Chris,Okay. Since you seem to be ready to accuse every person who's said this of being a liar (as does everyone else who's posted this opinion), I would like to ask you if you have any evidence to back up this claim?

Do you know any of these guys personally?

Do you have any reason other than speculation to say they're all lying?

Can you explain how it benefits anyone to make customers wait who are at their machines ready to buy?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?



Paul

Come on now. How many times have these "big gurus" done marketing launches?

Don't you think they know how much traffic to expect and prepare for?

"Whoa, the traffic really caught us off guard!"

I'm not saying it's a BAD tactic. I rather like it, actually. When I went through sales training back in the day, they called it the take-away close.

You give the product to the client. Let them hold it, look at it, then WOOP I have to take it back now. If you really want it, you'll have to BUY it.

So shut down the site for a bit. People are chomping at the bit..."What if they've sold out? What if I can't get it?"

This is why Nintendo UNDERships Wii's. It's why Apple UNDERships iPhones. It's why they UNDERshipped "Cabbage Patch Kids".

"Sorry, they're all gone. We just don't have enough."

Let the panic begin. Brilliant.

[jacktackett]

I'm not going to try to change your opinion Digabot, but unless you have solid proof (server logs etc) how do you know something other than resource limits - say a bad stored procedure - didn't cause the crash?

I've seen one crash a setup of 2 F5 Big IPs, with 20 servers and 2 database servers interconnected via fiber on a gigabit link out to 3 OC3 connections. As each server process executed the proc, it hung, and the entire website came down almost instantly. It was kinda cool since the customer was originally from Germany and I got to be cussed out in 2 languages (maybe 3 - couldn't tell really.)

What I'm saying is these folks know this might happen, but the costs currently to build a fault tolerant / load balanced system for just a few days is not cost effective, even to folks who can afford it. You believe they do it on purpose, I don't.

I once did, but having talked to a few sys admins and actually reading and thinking through Paul Myer's comments lead me to change my mind.

to each his own...

peace,
--Jack

Originally Posted by digabot

Sorry folks, this is a straight up launch tactic. PPC Classroom had a 6 server cluster. They had around 5,000 orders with staggered (private) onsales. No way that crashes that system.

In the case of Continuity Blueprint - People Crashing a couple of servers to get in on a (thin) $2000 product. Please. This is an excuse so that everyone promoting the program has additional chances to remail their lists. Also allows them to pool bonuses so that they can grab/share prospects for their own lists.

[DougBarger]

I really believe Ryan Deiss when he said it was an accident.

Afterall he said he prepared with the 2 dedicated servers, shared resources and had alerted his hosting co about the launch.

Still, the best laid plans sometimes don't work out for one reason or the other.

He'd probably much rather have had the extra sales during that

4 hour stretch than having people who wanted to buy but couldn't.

After all, all the time he spent preparing for the event was scheduled

to be rewarded during that planned time.

Most people know it can be sort of off-putting to have tech problems

during a scheduled event and certainly don't want it to happen.

But, after all is said and done, all you can do is learn from it and take extra precautions the next time to the best of your ability for the next one.

[Paul Myers]

Chris,

Come on now. How many times have these "big gurus" done marketing launches?

And how many ways are there to drop a server?

I will repeat my question: Do you have anything other than speculation to back up your assertion that they're all lying?

Why would they need to ramp up the social proof when people are already banging down the doors, credit cards in hand?

Try answering the logical questions, rather than playing at marketing psychologist.

I know a lot of these guys. The ones I know would rather brag about making the process seamless and selling out in a half hour than play with stupid mind games that could cost them money.


Paul

[Jason Fladlien]

Every marketer I know or have personally talked to who has done a big launch and had the server go down DID NOT manufacture it, was pissed that it happened, and said that there was way too much headache for them to consider even using it for a tactic to hype it up because the customer service is insane.

When you do a launch (even a small one) there are 50 million things that can go wrong. To anyone who has never done a launch, you wouldn't even begin to fathom some of the logistical nightmares that need to be handled. And as an entrepreneur, you usually run things by the seat of your pants, so it would not surprise me in the bit to see a problem like the server's crashing time and time again.

I tried to order PLF 2 three times and couldn't, then my credit card company wouldn't allow me to process my card because they thought someone had stole it. I almost didn't buy at that point. The server went down 2 minutes into the launch. Do you think that was a smart business move? So Jeff could email his list two minutes after he just emailed me telling them the product was live?

-Jason

[Paul Myers]

Jason,

The customer service nightmare is a huge point. I can guarantee you that Jeff would never have deliberately put his wife and his staff through that just to pull off a stupid stunt.


Paul

[jacktackett]

Agreed Paul with a single customer setup, but my concern would be with the big ISPs out there, like AOL and Time Warner. I've seen both cache their name servers and totally ignore the TTL settings of the authoritative name servers. So while the customer may not see an issue at the server - entire blocks of their customers would be driven to Guru A's system instead of Guru's B.

Basically my concern would be Guru A launches on Monday for a Mon-Wed usage, and then Guru B wants to launch on Thursday for a weekend launch. We'd have to switch dns settings to allow this and hope it propagates quickly.

and never mind - I really am a dummy (which is why Wiley selected me I guess :-) ). I just realized if I kept extra sets of ips and just rotated them through the servers I could get around that issue rather easily - as you said. Duh, too many funnel cakes at the state fair tonight - sorry :-)

As for the EC3 stuff - I'd check out the things rPath is doing - in fact I think Amazon is using their technology to manage some of its cloud infrastructure.

--Jack

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Jack,There are ways around that. That's actually the smallest concern.

A blend of 2 solid database machines, a load balancer, and EC3 would probably do it for a lot less money.



Paul

[oortcloud]

I agree it is a probably a marketing ploy, if it isnt. It is a brilliant side effect.
It has all the classic elements

social proof - to indicate high demand
scarcity
take away close- taking the offer off the table
fear of loss
justification to continue emailing


BUT my question is...... how do they do it exactly ?
What kind of server or service do they use ?
Is it simply that they somehow have access to reboot the server ?


Oh, and where do I get a merchant account to process $2 million in 24hours ?

[jacktackett]

Originally Posted by oortcloud

I agree it is a marketing ploy, it has all the classic elements
...

BUT my question is...... how do they do it exactly ?
What kind of server or service do they use ?
Is it simply that they somehow have access to reboot the server ?
....

Since this is a public forum where posts can be used against you in a court of law I'll just say I have no freakin' clue how to crash a server on purpose....

Maybe you should try the 2600 site :-)

--Jack

[tommygadget]

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Warm gummy bear anyone?

TomG.

PS - I think the launch promoters should have had a HAL9000 to handle the launch IMO.

[GarrieWilson]

Paul,

What is the reasoning behind telling a crowd of people who want to give you money that they can't?

Didn't Mr Reese say his million dollar launch day might not have happened if it wasn't for the 2nd wave of "server crashed" emails?

When the crashed emails go out, social proof & scarcity is in play. The people who get stalled 2-5 minutes for the reboot - still buy. AND people who didnt intend to buy, do so because of the "crash email."

And yes, I do believe Mr. Reeses server did crash. I can name a few marketers whom I do not believe though because of dealings with them. That is a different story though.

Garrie

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by Chris Monty

Come on now. How many times have these "big gurus" done marketing launches?

Don't you think they know how much traffic to expect and prepare for?

"Whoa, the traffic really caught us off guard!"

I'm not saying it's a BAD tactic. I rather like it, actually. When I went through sales training back in the day, they called it the take-away close.

You give the product to the client. Let them hold it, look at it, then WOOP I have to take it back now. If you really want it, you'll have to BUY it.

So shut down the site for a bit. People are chomping at the bit..."What if they've sold out? What if I can't get it?"

This is why Nintendo UNDERships Wii's. It's why Apple UNDERships iPhones. It's why they UNDERshipped "Cabbage Patch Kids".

"Sorry, they're all gone. We just don't have enough."

Let the panic begin. Brilliant.

I will have to strongly disagree .. Let's go another route here..

I have built 1,000's of websites and no I do not mean html webpages. I have built dynamic php driven websites in almost every kind of industry you can think of..

So I have went from development stage to live stage with my clients many many time over but that does not mean something may not be broke when you go live. It only takes one simple slip or one simple typo to disable an entire payment system and registration system. It happens, we are not perfect, we are human..

Same thing applies here for the big launches, yes I agree some do not plan ahead.. but again there is so many things that could go wrong that it would be impossible for a Human to account for what might go wrong.

Simply put I would have to agree with others unless you got some solid proof it's not a smart move to just out-right accuse someone.

James

[TheRichJerksNet]

Originally Posted by tommygadget

Warm gummy bear anyone?

TomG.

PS - I think the launch promoters should have had a HAL9000 to handle the launch IMO.

Too Funny !! ..lol

[Paul Myers]

Garrie,

I seem to recall him saying that, yes. But after the first two or three, people stop believing it and responding to it as a social proof thing. They see it more as a technical problem, which is what it is in most cases.

Yes, I know of some people who would do this to mask slow sales and prop up their launches. But not the ones usually accused of it.

As far as how you crash a server... Let me count the ways.


Paul

[GarrieWilson]

Paul,

Today, among IMers, I think it would have a negative effect more than positive because it happens so often.

Not to mention if it's for a service or script people, like me, would think "if he cant launch then his service/script cant be that good either.

*shrugs*

Garrie

[Chris Monty]

Originally Posted by Paul Myers

Chris,And how many ways are there to drop a server?

I will repeat my question: Do you have anything other than speculation to back up your assertion that they're all lying?

Why would they need to ramp up the social proof when people are already banging down the doors, credit cards in hand?

Try answering the logical questions, rather than playing at marketing psychologist.

I know a lot of these guys. The ones I know would rather brag about making the process seamless and selling out in a half hour than play with stupid mind games that could cost them money.


Paul

Paul,

I can see you are passionate about this point. I respect that.

You don't really need me to quote the very products that teach it, do you?

Ok, here's an excerpt from the most recent one I read....

Email 1: "We're open!"
Email 2: "The Server Crashed!! OMG!"
Email 3: "Ok we're back up and there are only 24 spots left!"
Email 4: "We're closed!!! Sold Out!"
Email 5: [ Explanation about overwhelming traffic and how it broke the servers ]
Email 6: [The 'Honesty Email'] "Ok just to show you how honest we are we're going to admit that 94 people have quit [insert uber-product name here] and these spots are NOW AVAILABLE!"
Email 7: "17 of Our New Servers Crashed!"
Email 8: "All spots are taken"
Email 9: "Our top member just made $46,394 in the first 4 days alone, and he's blind!!"
Email 10: "Act fast there are 15 spots available"

That is a copy & paste right from the e-book. It's just the standard IM playbook.

Are some of these crashed REAL? Absolutely. Some are also NOT real.

[Chris Monty]

Originally Posted by Chris Monty

Paul,

I can see you are passionate about this point. I respect that.

You don't really need me to quote the very products that teach it, do you?

Ok, here's an excerpt from the most recent one I read....

Email 1: "We're open!"
Email 2: "The Server Crashed!! OMG!"
Email 3: "Ok we're back up and there are only 24 spots left!"
Email 4: "We're closed!!! Sold Out!"
Email 5: [ Explanation about overwhelming traffic and how it broke the servers ]
Email 6: [The 'Honesty Email'] "Ok just to show you how honest we are we're going to admit that 94 people have quit [insert uber-product name here] and these spots are NOW AVAILABLE!"
Email 7: "17 of Our New Servers Crashed!"
Email 8: "All spots are taken"
Email 9: "Our top member just made $46,394 in the first 4 days alone, and he's blind!!"
Email 10: "Act fast there are 15 spots available"

That is a copy & paste right from the e-book. It's just the standard IM playbook.

Are some of these crashed REAL? Absolutely. Some are also NOT real.

...lol at the "and he's blind" part. I actually didn't notice that when I copied and pasted.

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

This is not a technique, it's called not planning properly. I run 2 dedicated servers and I fullyunderstand what they can handle and what they cant. Course I am a website developer.

Because I do know what they can handle I also know what NOT to do to overload my servers. Alot of these IM planning these big launches knownothing about servers and such.. They should actually be discussing their plans with their development staff which they probably do not do in fear of their idea being stolen.

This is why it's a good idea to have trustworthy development staff that you have used over and over.

Bottom line it is one or all of the following:

* Not Planning Properly
* Lack of Communications with Development Staff
* Poor Structuring on Database or Scripts Used


Just my 2 cents

James

James:

I'd like to respond to your post with a true story.

Anway corporation had been prepping to launch an internet portal, which they named Quixtar.

They spend two years planning, spent $200 million, and hired the brightest minds from IBM and Microsoft to ensure their ecommerce portal was as robust as possible.

They open the doors on Sept 1, 1999...and wham! The thing was crushed like a beer can. Server crash....they had smoke rolling out of the datacenter from all the traffic they got hit with (I believe the traffic they got hit with is still a launch day record).

The moral of this story is this....if the best and brightest our country has to offer cannot stop a site from crashing when launched, what chance does the garden varitey IM guru have of doing the same?

[Zachary R. Skinner]

Originally Posted by faxinator

Sure. It's like the case study of the new restaurant owner who ran a full-page ad in the newspaper saying that he would be unable to take any additional reservations during the month of March because March was completely booked (when, in fact, the restaurant still being completed inside and wasn't set to open until April). Of course, he was deluged with phone calls to reserve for April.

This reminds me of a south park episode where cartman inherits $1 million from his aunt and then buys an amusement park. He advertises to tell everyone that they can't come to his park which of course only makes people want to visit the place. Before long, the place is packed with people.

Believe it or not you can acutally learn alot from watching south park.

[TheRichJerksNet]

Floyd,
The exact reason why I posted this above

Same thing applies here for the big launches, yes I agree some do not plan ahead.. but again there is so many things that could go wrong that it would be impossible for a Human to account for what might go wrong.

James

[Erich]

It is a lack of planning and working with experienced development teams to be honest. I work in the large web commerce space. I will give you an example we were doing some testing for this holiday. For us to achieve 20,000 orders an hour this involves fully encrypted sessions with large baskets.

Once we broke 20,000 orders an hour we saturated the incoming Gigabit Ethernet network of our ISP. Let's just say we couldn't stuff anymore traffic down the load balancer. That 1 piece of HW costs more than mid 6 figures alone. The front end was approx 30 servers and the back end was a clustered set of SQL Servers. We hit about 50% percent on the SQL Servers and the Web Servers had a little more to give we just ran out of pipe.

We were happy because we expect at peak this year usually the Monday after Thanksgiving holiday we will see about 12,000 orders an hour.

Sorry for the long post my point is it took two weeks to tweak everything to run smoothly at 20,000 orders an hour. Think about the size of some of these launches in regards to lists? I know the people doing the launch don't have teams or able to make the type of investment of large ecommerce site.

You learn different things as you test and you must work with your developers. Everything can run fine at 10,000 orders but as soon as you go 10,001 it breaks the site. Then you have to fix and make sure things like your SQL queries are fully optimized etc and then you get to 15,000 orders and same thing happens again. It is a very expensive and time consuming process to get a site to scale.

The bottom line is if you haven't noticed is after the initial launch of say PPC Classroom. The traffic size starts to reduce after say day 2 or 3 and these sites recover. Not because the technical people did anything amazing the launch traffic slows down all the big lists have been hit, once or twice. They are still pulling in a thousand orders an hour plus.

Look at PPC Classroom launch, I got offers from every big gun on the planet with lists bigger than 100,000 each easily. Multiply that browse traffic x buyer x new member = site meltdown.

These guys aren't going to invest 6 figure HW load balancer let alone a configuration that would route the person to the closest web server based on geography. Or the web server and folks that would take to make the site run properly. The people that have that knowledge are busy working for the top sites on the web.

The big thing you will see happening over the next couple of years in the industry is the idea of Software as a Service. Cloud Computing etc you already see elements of it now with Amazon S3. My point is the big launches and us will be able to plug-in to more scalable web infrastructure for the fraction of the cost. We won't need to have the knowledge, the teams or have to make the investment. Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM all are going to provide services we will be able to use that will scale.

I strongly suspect that the PPC guys also fully saturated the internet pipe at the DC they were using. Not much they could do until traffic died down from the huge lists people have. Honestly it demonstrates the full power of IM.

Until then do realize it isn't a ploy it is a limitation of the current web infrastructure. That all the profits would be gone in fact none would be left to develop the product if they tried to build out an environment that could scale for the initial launch.

Add to all the video trying to stream, then all the new folks hitting the training at the same time and all the people trying to shop the site ughh...I chuckle when I see sites like PPC I am like ohh pretty this thing is going to MELT.

The configuration of the future will look something like this browse.biglaunch.com for all the shoppers that are looking, then when the user clicks configure or purchase it will go to configure.biglaunch.com after which when the person purchases it will move them to shop.biglaunch.com.

How this scales is you will find typically with the big launches that most of the browse traffic will hit browse.biglaunch.com so you scale for that. Then when the person adds to basket you move to different set of systems designed and scaled for all the upsells, reverse sells etc. Finally you move them to the shop.biglaunch.com for credit card or SSL traffic.

This splits the traffic up so you can scale to meet the demand of the launch. The problem is they don't do it that way today. The build one big site with the member section on the same site and same code etc will never scale. So if you get too much browse traffic it impacts everyone on the site and the launches fail.

Sorry Baby Host Gator with unlimited bandwidth and domains is not equipped but in the future you will sign up for a service like that and it will just work and millions of people will have no problem.

Oh wait maybe not by then the Gurus lists will still be too big will yours?

[Andrew Maule]

Hey I'd like to use this opportunity to let you all know my server crashed the other day when I launched my product. Really.

[davemiz]

lol. armchair quarterbacks.

yeah and you're somehow smarter than all the folks running the hosting companies.

of course you've experienced this sort of thing first hand so you're speaking from experience.... right?

fact is, some of these launches are getting MASSIVE amounts of traffic in short amounts of time.

things happens folks.

how do you think someones making $1mil in less than 48 hours? Where do you think all the sales come from?

thin air?

its called traffic.

LOTS of it.

Think about it... what marketer in their right mind would want to have their sites go down when they've worked all that time to build up the launch?

who in their right mind would want to shut down a site pulling in THOUSANDS a minute?

gimme a break.

[Andrew Maule]

Originally Posted by davemiz

Think about it... what marketer in their right mind would want to have their sites go down when they've worked all that time to build up the launch?

who in their right mind would want to shut down a site pulling in THOUSANDS a minute?

gimme a break.

Because you'll make even more if people feel they can't get it when they want it, and you'll almost automatically take anyone who was on the fence about purchasing it to wanting it even more and maybe into a committed buyer, that's it.

[jasondinner]

Originally Posted by digabot

Sorry folks, this is a straight up launch tactic. PPC Classroom had a 6 server cluster. They had around 5,000 orders with staggered (private) onsales. No way that crashes that system.

In the case of Continuity Blueprint - People Crashing a couple of servers to get in on a (thin) $2000 product. Please. This is an excuse so that everyone promoting the program has additional chances to remail their lists. Also allows them to pool bonuses so that they can grab/share prospects for their own lists.

Aw man,

Have you ever been involved in a million dollar launch?

On the conference room table with everyone involved and
you're all scrambling to have everything ready that needs
to be.

Based on your remarks, I take it you probably never have.

So, UNTIL you ever are - don't just assume that these guys
are letting their servers crash.

Especially as long as 4 hours.

Yeah, I promoted Ryan Deiss' Continuity Blueprint and I know
for a fact that I missed out on money as an affiliate which also
caused Ryan to miss out on money.

I can tell you with conviction that he'd rather have made the
sale than not be able to because his host didn't take him serious.

This type of sh*t happens.

Not everybody is out to get you.

I promise.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by digabot

So, has anyone noticed that launches these days (PPC Classroom, Continuity Blueprint, etc) all seem to be using the "we had so much interest we couldn't handle the volume" approach? The servers went down, blah, blah, blah. This is usually followed by additional "bonuses" that are simply ways for them to allow their friends to make offers to these same prospects/buyers.

Any drawbacks to using this launch technique?

Of course not. What possible drawbacks could there be from intentionally pissing off potential customers, or by wasting their time by not taking payments for 4 hours on launch day? Everybody knows the best way to get a sale is by intentionally wasting customers time, and by making it as difficult as possible to actually buy the product. Duh.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by digabot

Sorry folks, this is a straight up launch tactic. PPC Classroom had a 6 server cluster. They had around 5,000 orders with staggered (private) onsales. No way that crashes that system.

In the case of Continuity Blueprint - People Crashing a couple of servers to get in on a (thin) $2000 product. Please. This is an excuse so that everyone promoting the program has additional chances to remail their lists. Also allows them to pool bonuses so that they can grab/share prospects for their own lists.

So, basically you're saying that they deliberately send their customers to a dead site just so they can email them a second time to send them to a live site, instead of just sending them to a live site to begin with? Sure, that makes perfect sense, lol.

[nobodyspecial]

The disbelief shown whether the "server crashes" happen or not is fascinating in itself.

One wonders is this reflective of the marketing used in IM?

[ExRat]

Hi Nobodyspecial,

The disbelief shown whether the "server crashes" happen or not is fascinating in itself.

One wonders is this reflective of the marketing used in IM?

I agree - it's fascinating. And I believe that it's reflective of IM.

But I see it as being fascinating on both sides - it fascinates me that the one side gets so animated at the accusation, flocks to the thread and rolls out the -

Have you ever been involved in a million dollar launch?

On the conference room table with everyone involved and
you're all scrambling to have everything ready that needs
to be.

Based on your remarks, I take it you probably never have.

So, UNTIL you ever are - don't just assume that these guys
are letting their servers crash.

...line.

And it fascinates me that they just don't understand that the others are so used to reverse-psychology, crying wolf and scarcity that they flatly refuse to believe that anything can be a genuine problem as opposed to a carefully orchestrated marketing tactic.

I love to see these passionate debates. I have no vested interest in either side of the discussion, but as an observer it's pure gold, because you have two polarized viewpoints which gives a real insight into how the wheels in the market really turn.

It does baffle me a little why the 'it's not a tactic' side (which obviously contains some of the sharpest minds) keep repeating the same mantra and appearing to fail to understand the other side's point, which is summarized here -

Because you'll make even more if people feel they can't get it when they want it, and you'll almost automatically take anyone who was on the fence about purchasing it to wanting it even more and maybe into a committed buyer, that's it.

...which is virtually the same concept as using 'don't click here'. Why is it when this discussion comes up, the brightest minds here at the higher end of the IM food chain, act as if they have no comprehension of reverse psychology as a valid technique?

But I would add that after seeing Paul Myers comment on this repeatedly, suggesting that in his experience it is not a tactic and is a pain in the rear for the marketers concerned - I wouldn't doubt his word on it, regarding the ones that he has experience of.

Fascinating stuff.



Popcorn anyone? Anyone? Anyone? (said in a droll Bueller's teacher tone)

[nobodyspecial]

Roger, your observations are spot-on imho.

Both sides are actually "right"

The guru launches a product, the server(s) actually crash, and the issue gets turned into a marketing tactic.

If an email was sent out explaining the issue instead of being "hyped" like most other messages, it would be believable.

How about:

"Despite our best planning attempts, our servers are having trouble with the increased traffic to our site. We apologize if you are having trouble viewing the site or ordering. Please keep trying."

Instead of

"OMG, we are melting our servers!"

The sad fact is most companies don't know effective marketing and rely upon continual increased hype to sell stuff.

[haridasz]

Defiantely a case of curring corners.

Based on experience, these marketing experts and their 'gang' would know what to expect and what not to expect.