Glitches hit Wall Street Journal Web site as redesign launched

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Posted 4:43PM on Monday, January 28, 2002

NEW YORK - The Wall Street Journal unveiled a new look for its Web site Monday but the rollout was plagued by technical glitches that hampered access for some users. "We're still trying to assess what happened," said Neil Budde, publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online. "We've done extensive testing across the site. We were confident things were running well over the weekend but then something happened this morning." Budde said it wasn't clear whether the problems were related to the new design or the installation of some hardware upgrades, which also occurred over the weekend. Numerous users of the site complained of not being able to log in or that pages weren't loading normally. Budde said the site's managers were able to restore normal access by taking down features that allowed users to add customized features, which increased the strain on the site's infrastructure. Customizable features also existed on the previous version of the site, but they were moved to the front page of the site with the redesign. The site's new look bears less of a resemblance to a print newspaper and is intended to allow users to find features and navigate the site more easily. The Wall Street Journal's Web site is the largest subscription site on the Internet, with 626,000 subscribers as of Dec. 31.