[PeterT]

From todays The Toronto Star

Kobo servers overloaded by record sales of e-books
December 27, 2010

Kobo says it had record-setting e-book sales this holiday weekend, which explains why many readers were left disappointed after unwrapping their gift and finding it wouldn’t download any content.

Complaints about Kobo’s “server too busy” errors started appearing on Twitter on Christmas Day but customers were left in the dark for hours as the Canadian-based e-book reader company didn’t post anything about the problem on its blog or Twitter page.

“Trying to set up my Ma’s Kobo e-reader. We are not off to a good start. . . . ‘Server too busy’!!!” wrote Twitter user mirellaguzzo.

“So far it sucks,” added user franticee. “Can’t get it to download anything.”

On Monday, Kobo said it was a rush of record sales that overwhelmed the company’s servers, which were processing e-book purchases from more than 130 countries.

Kobo says its e-book sales over the holiday weekend were 50 times greater than in the same time period last year, and five times higher than the previous weekend record, which was set earlier this month.

Kobo says hundreds of thousands of devices were activated daily since Christmas Eve and more than a million customers logged on to the e-book store. Registered users nearly doubled in the last six weeks and “several” e-books have been downloaded each second since Christmas Eve, the company said in a release.

The top three purchased books were Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, and Man Booker Prize finalist and Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize winner Room, by author Emma Donoghue, who was born in Ireland and now lives in London, Ont.