As missiles fly thick and fast, so do e-mails

‘‘Our page views went through the roof,’’ said Sohu.com spokeswoman Caroline Straathof. Some 20,000 people had registered for the Chinese portal’s SMS-based news service in the first few hours of the war, paying about 25 yuan a month to receive news on their mobile phones, she said. People across the world also tapped away on their mobile phones, sending text messages of fear, outrage and black humour.

‘‘Have you heard that when the US takes over Iraq it will divide the country into three zones — premium, regular and unleaded,’’ said one message circulating in Manila.

Yahoo Inc’s news site saw about three times more traffic than it would in a typical hour. Traffic at the internet arm of cable news network MSNBC was running at two-and-a-half times normal levels after the war started, said Dean Wright, editor-in-chief.

The search for news of the threat of war has driven many Americans to the Web. The 15 top sites had an average 41 per cent more traffic on Tuesday than their average over the previous four weeks, according to Comscore Media Metrix.

The conflict with Iraq will be the biggest war involving the US since the Internet became a major medium.

In the 1991 Gulf War, the Internet was in early stages of development and cable TV was the dominant source for news. (Reuters )