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Marvel Entertainment offered 700 No. 1 issues, including 2012's "Avengers," free for digital download.As part of SXSW, Marvel offered 700 No. 1 issues free for digital downloadServers crashed; readers were unable to download their free issuesComixology's CEO announced it is "pausing the promotion for the time being"

(CNN) -- Talk about being a victim of your own success.

Among several new initiatives announced by Marvel Entertainment at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival was a two-day giveaway of 700 issues of classic Marvel No. 1 issues via their app.

The adventures, new and old, of the X-Men, Spider-Man and the Avengers would be available free, and the first issues would make it easier for new readers to follow.

It was an unprecedented offer in the world of digital comics. But perhaps it was one that its technology partner, Comixology, was unprepared for: The servers crashed.

One day after the freebies were announced at Marvel's SXSW panel in Austin, Texas, it was put to a halt -- at least temporarily -- by Comixology. The problem: too much interest.

"We expected a high degree of excitement for the Marvel initiative -- and had believed ourselves prepared -- but unfortunately we became overwhelmed by the immense response," admitted Comixology's CEO and co-founder, David Steinberger.

"We're still struggling to keep our systems up."

Steinberger added, "We don't like letting you down. Our teams are working around the clock to resolve these issues so that you can have the experience you've come to expect."

He said the promotion would be "pausing for the time being."

Comics readers were told to post their e-mail addresses on a form to be notified when the offer would be back up and running.

Marvel posted a statement to its website: "Marvel fans assembled in record numbers to take advantage of the landmark Marvel #1 digital comics sale! The demand has been so overwhelmingly positive, in fact, that a number of technical issues have arisen with our technology partner in getting the more than 700 free issues to each of you. When we have further updates from our partner, we will share them."

The advent of reading comics digitally, especially on tablets, has been seen by some as the future of the comics industry, as print readership continues to decline.

To that end, Marvel has increased its presence at SXSW, this year announcing products such as the weekly Infinite Comics, which are specifically designed with the digital reader in mind, and Project Gamma, which adds audio to the digital reading experience.

/* push in config for this share instance */cnn_shareconfig.push({"id" : "cnn_sharebar2","url" : "http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/12/tech/free-comics-marvel-sxsw/index.html","title" : "Marvel comics offer \'paused\' after servers crash"});March 13, 2013 -- Updated 1222 GMT (2022 HKT) Hoopla surrounding South by Southwest Interactive has exploded in recent years. Here are five takeaways from the past five days.March 14, 2013 -- Updated 1606 GMT (0006 HKT) Talk about being a victim of your own success.March 13, 2013 -- Updated 1129 GMT (1929 HKT) With its orange paint, muscular look and mounted steer horns, an unusual race car has been turning heads on the streets of this capital city.March 13, 2013 -- Updated 1129 GMT (1929 HKT) Julie Uhrman needed $950,000 from Kickstarter in less than a month to make her dream of an affordable, free-to-play gaming console a reality. March 11, 2013 -- Updated 1954 GMT (0354 HKT) Forget Elon Musk or Al Gore. The biggest star of the South by Southwest Interactive festival is less than a year old, sleeps all day and looks like she just swallowed a hairball.March 14, 2013 -- Updated 1221 GMT (2021 HKT) Click through our gallery that puts you right in the middle of SXSW 2013 in Austin, Texas.March 12, 2013 -- Updated 1540 GMT (2340 HKT) Shaquille O'Neal may be 7 feet tall and one of the most dominant players in NBA history, but here at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, he's just a big nerd.March 14, 2013 -- Updated 1247 GMT (2047 HKT) In five years on YouTube, Francesca Ramsey says, only one of the nearly 200 videos she's posted has been explicitly about race. March 12, 2013 -- Updated 1540 GMT (2340 HKT) Alexis Ohanian is not the mayor of the Internet.March 10, 2013 -- Updated 0133 GMT (0933 HKT) The future of space travel will depend on our ability to make rockets that can be used more than once, says SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. March 9, 2013 -- Updated 2121 GMT (0521 HKT) Four years ago an unknown startup called MakerBot showed up at the South by Southwest Interactive conference here with a prototype of its first desktop 3-D printer, which spit out plastic replicas of small objects.Most popular Tech stories right now

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By Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich, Special to CNN November 7, 2012 -- Updated 2115 GMT (0515 HKT) | Filed under: Social Media In an emergency, social media can be a powerful tool — but be sensitive, smart and skeptical with what you post.Sandy-related posts have dominated social media, from tweets to Instagram photosIn the event of an emergency, think carefully about what you post: it can hurt and helpDuring a storm, it's smart to re-post valuable information, but stay skeptical until it's verifiedEditor's note: Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz have been the sarcastic brains behind the blog and book "Stuff Hipsters Hate." Got a question about etiquette in the digital world? Contact them at netiquette@cnn.com.

(CNN) -- It's been more than a week since Hurricane Sandy battered the East Coast, leaving a mess in its wake that we'll be cleaning for months to come.

In addition to consuming our worries and our watercooler chatter, the disaster has taken social media by, uh, superstorm, keeping us connected as we weathered the build-up, the tempest and its aftermath.

On October 29, all the top 10 most-mentioned phrases on Facebook in the United States were Sandy-related, including "stay safe," "power," "cold," and "my friends." On Twitter, storm-related terms were top trending topics, and on Instagram, users uploaded 10 pictures per second with the hashtag "Sandy."

In the spirit of post-disaster giving, we offer these tips (in addition to donations to the Red Cross and blood banks, obviously) for using the Web wisely before, during and after a catastrophe. Keep them handy for next time, because you've heard the scientists and all their global warming hullabaloo-ing.

(Or you can always take this tack. Shrug.)

BEFORE THE EMERGENCY

-- By all means, yuk it up.

If there's an OK time to laugh in the face of danger, it's before the disaster has hit, when people scuttling around town like frenzied chipmunks in search of batteries and bread could really use a bit of comic relief.

Artist Todd Hale's hilarious Olivia Newton John infographic, for example, brought lots of smiles in the days leading up to the storm.

-- Use it to crowdsource, and to be helpful yourself

If anything brings out chilly East Coasties' soft sides, it's a shared disaster. Tap into the goodness of locals' hearts by requesting help ("Anyone know of a grocery store in Fort Greene that still has TP/water/malt liquor beverages?!") and by offering newsflashes yourself (e.g., adding a tip to Foursquare noting that a bodega is positively bursting with flashlights and Tecates).

Keep the good karma rolling apres storm, of course — retweeting information about local blood drives, say, or pointing out which restaurants have reopened their doors.

DURING THE DISASTER

-- Let everyone know you're safe.

We live in New York City and experienced massive ego boosts when scores of "Are you safe? Dry? Alive?" texts rolled in during the storm. The thing is, had our power been out, we would have been pretty irritated by all the momentary drains on our smartphones' batteries.

Storms are the perfect time to value efficiency, and social networks are all about a small effort for a big reward: They give us unprecedented opportunity to broadcast information about ourselves to interested parties with just one update.

Whether you prefer to use Twitter, Facebook, a blog or something else, give the basics ("We're safe but without water or power, will keep you posted, and thanks for all the messages!") and then focus on the issues at hand. Like, oh, survival.

-- Stop joking when sh*t gets real

In New York City, things got scary quickly — we heard reports of looting downtown, of houses sucked away on Staten Island, of power failures in hospitals that necessitated mid-storm evacuation efforts. Litmus test: Are people dying? Yes? Then don't joke about it. You just look unclever and out of touch (cough cough Dane Cook cough).

-- Stay skeptical

Don't re-share every darn heart-stopping picture that makes it into your feed. Said picture is probably fake and will just scare the bejeebus out of your already twitchy followers.

-- Conserve your battery.

This ought to go without saying, but: If your updates run along the lines of, "OMG it's so dark! All of our candles are scented and now the place smells like the trash room of a perfume factory! I can't believe I can see Orion from Manhattan! It looks like a scene from 'The Walking Dead' outside my window! Hey which flashlight app do you guys like best?!" no one will pity you when your phone gives its last feeble beep.

Unplug. Play some cards. Make like this unintentionally hilarious Brooklyn-dweller and "live by candlelight, get in touch with (your) 19th-century self."

AFTER THE STORM

-- Mention it politely.

As things return to normal, we're all beginning to contact one another about the boring things we must contact one another about -- bills, travel, figuring out where your new vacuum got sent after your local FedEx center turned into a large-scale aquarium, etc.

When contacting anyone in the Northeast, it's kind to include a brief reference to Sandy at the beginning or the end, e.g, "I hope you and yours are safe and dry after last week's storm." No need to ask for details or get too effusive in your well-wishing.

But ignoring the elephant in the room in your correspondence seems, well, a bit callous, especially since the storm may affect the recipient's ability to get back to you.

-- Tread lightly with work e-mails.

Similarly, when the wheels of commerce begin to spin again, offices will be back up and running at different dates.

A reader inquired about totally refraining from e-mailing people at work so as not to seem insensitive, which seems a bit extreme. If you're back on the job and have business e-mails to send, by all means, say what you need to say.

Just bear in mind that even if you don't get an auto-response, your intended recipient might not be working. If that's the case, follow up in a couple of weeks, when things are — optimism ahoy! — back to normal.

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