``Ebay Weekend'' refers to mid-June 1999, when the online auction service crashed hard and was closed to buyers and sellers for periods stretching up to 48 hours. Unscheduled interruptions have plagued customers of many network services, including TurboTax, Etrade, Hotmail, Terraserver, AOL, even ATM machine customers in Singapore. While the immediate downside of a service crash may be financial (Ebay estimated losses due to the recent outage at $3-5 million--10% of quarterly revenue), the potential loss of loyalty and trust among customers and investors is greater.
prepared by sean dreilinger.