Volcano Drives Travelers to Video Conferencing

Europe's travel industry sites and video conferencing sites have been flooded with visitors in recent days, thanks to would-be travelers stranded by Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, Bloomberg reports. One phone company says it's seen demand for audio and video conferencing jump an unheard of 35%, and overall web traffic is well above normal levels.

Many companies were theoretically open to video conferencing before, but hadn't tried it, says the chief executive of one of Europe's biggest providers of such virtual meetings. “This type of event forces people to look into it. It's a wakeup call.” As of yesterday, about 81,000 flights have been canceled thanks to Eyjafjallajökull's temper tantrum. (More Eyjafjallajokull volcano stories.)