The Internet played a considerable role in the aftermath of the terrorist

attack on New York City and Washington, DC. The best and the worst of online

usage emerged as email and instant messaging became prime sources of

communication. News-based Web sites bogged down from high traffic. Many

popular news sites froze from the spike in traffic. Here are a few of the

more striking uses of the Web during the early hours and days of the disaster.

Instant messaging worked when phone failed

Instant messaging became one of the stars in the early hours after the attack

as consumers and businesses corresponded one-to-one when phone lines quit

working in part of New York City. America Online reported that 1.2 billion

messages were sent via instant messaging and on AOL's proprietary client

software on September 11 alone.

Amazon and Yahoo accepted Red Cross donations

Both Amazon.com and Yahoo.com allowed contributors to make donations to the

Red Cross to help victims of the disaster. By Friday morning after the

disaster, Amazon reported 121,579 payments had been made to the Red Cross,

totaling $4,394,870.41, according to News.com. Both companies waived the fees

they normally charge for facilitating payments.

Hackers waged vigilante strikes against Palestinian and Afghani sites

Online hacker groups hacked into Palestinian and Afghani Web sites after the

terrorist attacks. One vigilante group, The Dispatchers, is a group of 60

hackers that includes The Rev, a hacker who defaced the New York Times

financial quote service last February. The hackers released a statement

claiming they had united to fight back and disable sites. According to The

Rev, several Palestinian-affiliated Internet service providers have now been

disabled. The group claimed it will next work to shut down Afghani sites.

Online scams exploited disaster

A particularly ugly creature of the online world rose its awful head when

Internet scammers started to solicit donations for victims and survivors of

the attacks. The scams came in the form on unsolicited email and postings in

community forums. The crooks claimed to be part of an "Express Relief Fund"

or "Victims Survivor Fund." Another scam actually asked for donations for the

Red Cross, but the link led to a Web site unconnected to the organization.

The scams started within an hour of the WTC attack, according to ZDNet.

Search engines reported a surge in attack-related queries

Not surprisingly, search engines were hit hard by consumers searching for

information on the disaster. The popular search engine, Google, reported that

searches for news-related sites increased 60 times over normal levels on

September 11. Within an hour of the second airliner hitting the WTC, Google

received more than 6,200 queries for CNN in one minute. Google quickly

established an "American Under Attack" section, which collected the top ten

search queries, including CNN, World Trade Center, BBC, Pentagon, MSNBC,

Osama bin Laden, Nostradamus, American Airlines, FBI and Barbara Olsen.

Barbara Olsen is the Fox News commentator who was aboard the airplane that

hit the Pentagon.

Scores of tech executives were lost in the disaster

A high number of high tech and Internet executives were lost on September 11.

Many were in their offices on the high floors of the World Trade Center,

while others were aboard the airliners that were hijacked. As my day job, I'm

a senior editor at Electronic News, one of the many trade publications

published by Cahners Business Information. Two of our executives, Jeff

Mladenik and Andrew Curry Green, were on Flight 11 from Boston to Los

Angeles, the first plane to hit the WTC. Both men worked for eLogic, the

Cahners company that produces Web sites for the company's publications.

About the Author

Rob Spiegel is the author of Net Strategy (Dearborn) and the upcoming

Shoestring Entrepreneur's Guide to Internet Start-ups (St. Martin's Press).

You can reach Rob at spiegelrob@aol.com