NEW YORK — Major websites including Foursquare and Reddit crashed or suffered slowdowns Thursday after technical problems rattled Amazon.com's widely used Web servers, frustrating millions of people who couldn't access their favorite sites.
Though better known for selling books, DVDs and other consumer goods, Amazon also rents out space on huge computer servers that run many websites and other online services.
The problems began at an Amazon data center near Dulles Airport outside Washington and persisted into the afternoon. The failures were widespread, but they varied in severity.
HootSuite, which lets users monitor Twitter and other social networks more easily, was down completely, as was questions-and-answers site Quora.
The location-sharing social network Foursquare experienced glitches, while the news-sharing site Reddit was in "emergency read-only mode."
Many other companies that use Amazon Web Services, like Netflix Inc. and Zynga Inc., which runs Facebook games, appeared to be unscathed. Amazon has at least one other major data center that stayed up, in California.
It's not uncommon for Internet services to become inaccessible due to technical problems, sometimes for hours or even days. But Thursday's outages were notable because Amazon's servers are so commonly used, meaning many sites went down at once.
Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. It has not revealed how many companies use its Web services or how many were affected by the outage.
No one knew for sure how many people were inconvenienced, but the services affected are used by millions.
Amazon Web Services provides "cloud" or utility-style computing in which customers pay only for the computing power and storage they need, on remote computers.
Seattle-based Amazon has big plans for AWS. Although it now makes up just a few percent of the company's revenue, CEO Jeff Bezos said last year that it could eventually be as large as Amazon's retail business. Competitors include Rackspace Hosting Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure platform.
McDonald's fears cost hike
McDonald's said Thursday that it expects more price increases for beef and other key ingredients, sending the stock down even as the company reported improved earnings for the first quarter. The company spent the day emphasizing how sales have increased, beating analysts' expectations, and showcasing strong demand in Europe and Asia. But analysts were more concerned about rising food prices, a global trend rippling to customers, franchisees and investors everywhere. The company is considering raising menu prices, but that could scare off customers who dine there mainly because of the low cost.
Ban in nuclear plant area
Japan declared a 12-mile evacuated area around its radiation-spewing nuclear power plant a no-go zone Thursday. The order angered residents who fled their homes nearly empty-handed when they were told to evacuate after last month's tsunami and earthquake wrecked the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's power and cooling systems. Officials said the order was meant to limit exposure to radiation leaking from the plant and to prevent theft in the mostly deserted area. Under a special nuclear emergency law, people who enter the zone will now be subject to fines of up to 100,000 yen ($1,200) or detention of up to 30 days.
Columbine similarities
Authorities couldn't help seeing similarities Thursday to the Columbine High School shootings after a fire forced the evacuation of a mall just two miles from the notorious campus. Just like Columbine, an unexploded pipe bomb and propane tank were discovered at Southwest Plaza Mall the day before. In addition, the blaze coincided with the 12th anniversary of the deadly shootings that left 12 students and one teacher dead. No arrests have been made, but dozens of law enforcement agents were scouring security video and following other leads to identify a man seen entering the mall through a side door not normally used by the public. No one was injured at the mall and the bomb didn't explode.
In this screen shot of the foursquare.com website, an apology for technical difficulties is displayed. Dozens of major websites including Foursquare, Reddit and others crashed or suffered severe slowdowns after technical problems wracked their hosting company, Amazon.com., on Thursday. | associated press photo~foursquare.com
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