Hallmark Web Site Puts Many Males In Dog House

February 17, 2005

Hallmark Site Traffic Puts Majority Of Males In "Dog House"

Hallmark Cards yesterday apologized to its clients for screwing over last-minute electronic card senders stemming from problems they experienced trying to access the greeting cards maker's Web site on Valentine's Day.

When a nation of Internet users attempted to send (males, i.e., cheap and last-minute) or receive (females, many of whom are in relationships with cheap and last-minute males) Hallmark electronic cards on Monday, they were turned away from the company's Web site, which was offline for a significantly large portion of the day due to Web traffic.

In an issued statement, Hallmark explained, "See, our Web master's girlfriend broke up with him that morning--to date his younger, adopted sister. So he sort of--temporarily--held a vendetta against happy couples across the world."

Okay, what Hallmark actually had to say, in an e-mail to its clients: "We thought we were ready to handle a huge amount of traffic on Valentine's Day. Obviously, we thought wrong."

Obviously.

The company said its Web site was flooded by double the expected traffic. This means that men are twice as lazy regarding romantic demonstration than they were last year: less candy and jewelry; fewer gifted paper cards, flowers, tickets to monster truck rallies, etc. It also means that there was, and will likely continue to be, a significant rise in number of men who slept on the couch or in their otherwise-empty bed that night.

Her: "It's not like I was expecting anything big from you. I know I was lucky to get, what was it, The Mack on DVD last year. You didn't even give me a card this year."

Him: "I tried to send you a card online, but..."

Her: "An online card? Not even a paper card?"

Him: "Yeah, because...uh...well...because...er...I...figured...you'd....appreciate it more than a real card because...you're...[lighbulb, smile] sitting at your computer at work all day and wouldn't have gotten the paper card until, well who knows with the post office, right?"

Her: ...

Him: ...[still smiling, nodding his head with pride]...

Her: "That's the lamest excuse I've ever heard for not sending a completely lovable and otherwise-understanding girlfriend a gift--I mean, a card. And on Valentine's Day--the greatest day there is for lovers. You suck. Consider this my resignation from this relationship."

Him: "Oh, come on!"

[She walks away.]

Her: [under breath] "Who the hell gives a girl The Mack as a V Day gift?"

Him: [under breath] "How is this even considered a holiday?"

"We cringe at the disappointment we caused to some of you," the card company continued in its e-mail.

According to TechWeb:

AlertSite, a Coconut Creek, Fla.-based Web site metrics provider, noted that starting as early as 7 a.m. EDT Hallmark.com began experiencing problems. When it polled the site at 7 a.m., only 28 percent of the requests got through, and response times surged to nearly three seconds for those who did manage to connect. Although the site's performance improved by 8 a.m., it fell again the hour after that. By 10 a.m., the site had gone offline.

As of 1 p.m. EDT, the site still displayed the message, "Hallmark.com is temporarily offline for maintenance. We want to make sure our site is the best it can be, so we're doing a bit of house cleaning. We expect to be back online shortly."

About 1 billion traditional cards are exchanged on Valentine's Day, making it the second-biggest card-sending occasion of the year after Christmas.

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DRB