Buycott App Goes Viral and is Pulled. Traffic Crashes Website
It's a dream come true. You develop an app that everyone wants and the traffic to use it is phenomenal. It's a nightmare come true! You receive tremendous media publicity, there's a rush for downloads but your app has to be pulled because it's not capable of dealing with mega-traffic.
The Android version of the new Buycott smartphone app even brought down the company’s website last week.
Initially, the free app was fine. Folks downloaded it so they could buy products in keeping with their principles. Buycott helped them find out which companies made products by scanning their barcodes. Buycott traced codes to their top parent companies and cross-checked them against social advocacy campaigns. Consumers could easily tell if the company was one they favored or one that was engaging in cruelty to animals or other negative behaviors. But then app users were looking to boycott the Koch brothers and Monsanto, so they were checking company affiliations with both and traffic grew.
After a media blitz about the app, Buycott's popularity skyrocketed. At its peak it reached No. 10 in the Google Play store and requests exceeded 100 downloads per minute. No one was ready for this cataclysm and they pulled the app. Developer, 26-year-old Ivan Pardo of Los Angeles explained on the company's FB page that they were working 24/7, moving to a server configuration that could deal with the traffic.
During this work through, it is hoped that some of the problems identified by social media users in their feedback to the company will be ironed out. For example, "Burt's Bees' parent company is Proctor & Gamble which tests with animals.The app doesn't identify this conflict. But it will identify (after you join Demand GMO Labeling) whether a product was made by one of the 36 corporations donating over $150,000 to stop labeling GMOs.
Since the app is not spun to a particular mind set, it can be used to patronize and promote companies that back GMO labeling or a company like Starbucks which has supported the LBGT movement. The empowering beauty of Buycott is that it gives information and allows users to make informed decisions about their choices. In effect, the app can strengthen consumer buying power to bend corporate accountability to consumer will. It may even level the playing field and bring greater competition to the market place.
But first it needs to straighten out the kinks in addition to dealing with mega-traffic. It's not perfect (It's still available for iPhone). Corporate structures change, constant updating must be made and it likely won't be able to identify EVERY retail product.
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