Apple enthusiasts keen on hearing chief executive officer Steve Jobs' keynote speech at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco on Monday in the United States temporarily knocked the exhibition's Web site offline.

As Jobs took to the stage at the Moscone Centre, the number of people who flocked to the exhibition's official Web site macworldexpo.com caused it to slow to a crawl before being knocked offline completely, according to Web site monitoring firm Netcraft.

According to Netcraft, the "crush of surfers eager for details on the latest Apple products slowed macworldexpo.com to a crawl. The site was knocked offline Monday night, apparently from traffic chasing the latest rumours about new product unveilings."

Netcraft noted that the Web site had shifted to a new host a week earlier in anticipation of a flood of visitors: "On 3 January, the site (which ironically is powered by Windows Server 2003) was shifted to new hosting digs at Level 3, perhaps in anticipation of heavy traffic during the annual MacWorld show."

This year's Mac World Expo was one of the most eagerly anticipated Mac events for some time because, as expected, Apple launched the first of its Intel-based computers.