Internet proves vital communications tool

NEW YORK -- For many, one of the first reactions to the news of Tuesday's terrorist attacks was to turn to the Web.

Gretchen Heefner of San Francisco quickly went online when she heard about the terrorist attacks. She dashed off e-mails to several close friends in New York, "Send word when you can."

The Internet proved crucial Tuesday as people trying to contact friends and family met with busy signals using telephone voice circuits.

"I could not reach anyone on their home phone, cell phone or work phone from my home phone or cell phone, and so e-mail was the best way," Heefner said. "Fortunately, people were in their offices and have fast connections and could get their e-mail right away."

CNN.COM SPECIAL REPORT  CNN NewsPass Video  Agencies reportedly got hijack tips in 1998  MORE STORIES Intelligence intercept led to Buffalo suspects Report cites warnings before 9/11  EXTRA INFORMATION Timeline: Who Knew What and When? Interactive: Terror Investigation Terror Warnings System Most wanted terrorists What looks suspicious? In-Depth: America Remembers In-Depth: Terror on Tape In-Depth: How prepared is your city?  RESOURCES On the Scene: Barbara Starr: Al Qaeda hunt expands? On the Scene: Peter Bergen: Getting al Qaeda to talk  Sites established to help located survivors: Safe Millennium "I'm Okay" Message Center Donations to the American Red Cross

Web sites were established by Prodigy Communications Corp. and the University of California at Berkeley to help people find loved ones who survived Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Visitors can enter their names and messages stating they are "OK," or check on people they know near the attack scenes.

"Some of my roommates were having trouble contacting loved ones on the East Coast," said Miriam Walker, a Berkeley graduate student who came up with the idea.

Several sites added messages of sympathy to their home pages.

United and American Airlines posted messages on their Web sites, extending their condolences to friends and family members and providing phone numbers for relatives to call.

Phone lines were busy for both land line and cell phone users, as thousands of people tried to find out if loved ones were safe. BellSouth reported a three-fold increase in its traffic Tuesday morning.

Many who got busy signals or a recording that "all circuits are currently busy," turned instead to e-mail and instant messaging, allowing people coast to coast to communicate with each other right away.

Auction giant eBay, out of sensitivity to the attacks, banned until October 1 the sale of any items relating to the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.

At first, eBay staff took down several listings offering debris or other items purportedly from the buildings. Later, the company decided to ban even legitimate items related to the sites to eliminate the chance someone would try to profit from the tragedy, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said.

PayPal, an online payment service, also established a Web site where people can make donations to the National Disaster Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

Traffics slowed, some sites jammed

In the hours following the attacks, Internet traffic slowed and the major news Web sites were jammed.

The Internet search engine Google directed news seekers to radio and television. "Many online news services are not available, because of extremely high demand," a statement read on the site's home page.

Television broadcasts did not appear to promote their Web sites as heavily as they normally do during breaking news.

Technicians at MSNBC.com removed graphics from the site to allow users to access the news faster. CNN.com also streamlined its site, temporarily removing video, ads and non-breaking news.

Typically, CNN.com gets 14 million page views a day.

But, because of demand for any details on the unfolding tragedy, it reached upwards of 9 million page views per hour.

Page views correspond to the number of Web pages accessed through a site overall, whereas hits are defined as each server request that can include images and other objects on a Web page.

Reaching the Web site for ABC News was difficult in the morning, before ABC took measures including borrowing server capacity from ESPN.com, owned by the same company as ABC.

The WIRE and other Internet services run by The Associated Press experienced more than five times the normal traffic, said company spokeswoman Kelly Tunney.

"All of our news distributions systems have been stable despite the tumultuous amount of traffic," she said.

The Internet's central backbone performed well overall, according to Keynote Systems Inc., an Internet performance measurement company.

But Keynote spokeswoman Mary Lindsay said it took about twice as long, more than 12 seconds versus a normal five seconds, to reach dozens of other popular sites the company tracks. She added that when the story first broke some news sites were completely unavailable due to the exceptionally high volume of users.

Groups that monitor hacking reported no unusual activities.

-- The Associated Press and CNN's Marsha Walton contributed to this report.