Ben and Jerry's 'Free Cone Day' Crashes Website

Today Ben and Jerry's held "Free Cone Day," its annual promotion when it gives out free ice cream cones at its stores. Apparently it underestimated just how excited people would be about the giveaway, because the ice cream hysteria managed to crash its website.

As of this writing BenJerry.com is down. The company didn't explicitly acknowledge that high traffic was responsible for the website outage, but it did post a picture on its Facebook page bemoaning "that awkward moment when your site crashes on #freeconeday." Given that it's the first truly warm day of the year in the Northeast, it's safe to say that the site experienced a crush of people screaming for ice cream.

While the outage means that you can't access the website's shop locator, the company posted a link to another site that people can use to find their local shop. The giveaway continues until 8 p.m. local time.

But a word of warning: If there's so much demand for free ice cream that it crashed the company's website, chances are you're going to find a long line when you get there.

Matt Brownell is the consumer and retail reporter for DailyFinance. You can reach him at Matt.Brownell@teamaol.com, and follow him on Twitter at @Brownellorama.


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