Obama's Zune story crashes news site

PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- President-elect Barack Obama's reported use of a Microsoft Zune mp3 player caused a Philadelphia newspaper's Web site to crash temporarily, an editor said.

Drew Lazor, the online editor for citypaper.net, said Obama's choice of a Zune over his usual iPod while working out at a gym was reported as "a rather innocuous comment in the original piece" appearing in the weekly newspaper, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.

Lazor said the mention of Obama's Zune did not come until the fourth paragraph of the story but a tech blogger spotted the story "and it kind of exploded from there." He said the sudden surge of traffic to citypaper.net from tech enthusiasts caused the Web site to crash.

"We didn't anticipate this kind of attention," Lazor said.

An Obama spokeswoman said after the story broke that the president-elect usually uses an iPod and she did not know where the Zune he was seen with came from.