The Internet played a considerable role in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on New York City and Washington, DC. The best and the worst of online usage emerged as email and instant messaging became prime sources of communication. News-based Web sites bogged down from high traffic. Many popular news sites froze from the spike in traffic. Here are a few of the more striking uses of the Web during the early hours and days of the disaster.

Instant messaging worked when phone failed

Instant messaging became one of the stars in the early hours after the attack as consumers and businesses corresponded one-to-one when phone lines quit working in part of New York City. America Online reported that 1.2 billion messages were sent via instant messaging and on AOL's proprietary client software on September 11 alone.

Amazon and Yahoo accepted Red Cross donations

Both Amazon.com and Yahoo.com allowed contributors to make donations to the Red Cross to help victims of the disaster. By Friday morning after the disaster, Amazon reported 121,579 payments had been made to the Red Cross, totaling $4,394,870.41, according to News.com. Both companies waived the fees they normally charge for facilitating payments.

Hackers waged vigilante strikes against Palestinian and Afghani sites

Online hacker groups hacked into Palestinian and Afghani Web sites after the terrorist attacks. One vigilante group, The Dispatchers, is a group of 60 hackers that includes The Rev, a hacker who defaced the New York Times financial quote service last February. The hackers released a statement claiming they had united to fight back and disable sites. According to The Rev, several Palestinian-affiliated Internet service providers have now been disabled. The group claimed it will next work to shut down Afghani sites.

Online scams exploited disaster

A particularly ugly creature of the online world rose its awful head when Internet scammers started to solicit donations for victims and survivors of the attacks. The scams came in the form on unsolicited email and postings in community forums. The crooks claimed to be part of an "Express Relief Fund" or "Victims Survivor Fund." Another scam actually asked for donations for the Red Cross, but the link led to a Web site unconnected to the organization. The scams started within an hour of the WTC attack, according to ZDNet.

Search engines reported a surge in attack-related queries

Not surprisingly, search engines were hit hard by consumers searching for information on the disaster. The popular search engine, Google, reported that searches for news-related sites increased 60 times over normal levels on September 11. Within an hour of the second airliner hitting the WTC, Google received more than 6,200 queries for CNN in one minute. Google quickly established an "American Under Attack" section, which collected the top ten search queries, including CNN, World Trade Center, BBC, Pentagon, MSNBC, Osama bin Laden, Nostradamus, American Airlines, FBI and Barbara Olsen. Barbara Olsen is the Fox News commentator who was aboard the airplane that hit the Pentagon.

Scores of tech executives were lost in the disaster

A high number of high tech and Internet executives were lost on September 11. Many were in their offices on the high floors of the World Trade Center, while others were aboard the airliners that were hijacked. As my day job, I'm a senior editor at Electronic News, one of the many trade publications published by Cahners Business Information. Two of our executives, Jeff Mladenik and Andrew Curry Green, were on Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles, the first plane to hit the WTC. Both men worked for eLogic, the Cahners company that produces Web sites for the company's publications.