Though Saturday's (10/9) star-studded NetAid benefit concerts failed to fill the three venues from which they originated, organizers claimed the webcast set a single-day Web event record by delivering nearly 2.4 million online streams.

According to ZDNet, the webcast did suffer brownouts in some areas due to heavy usage, most notably in parts of New York and California, but the system didn't suffer any major outages. The streamed images were often shaky and grainy, but organizers said the webcast never hit the system's capacity of 125,000 simultaneous users.

The NetAid benefit -- which aimed to increase awareness of worldwide poverty -- featured overlapping public concerts in London, England and East Rutherford, New Jersey and an invitation-only concert at The Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Despite talent line-ups that included names like Wyclef Jean [ tickets ], Bono [ tickets ], Sting [ tickets ], Pete Townshend [ tickets ], Puff Daddy [ tickets ], David Bowie, George Michael and Bryan Ferry, empty seats were noticeable at all three venues, most notably at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, where the building appeared filled to about half of its 70,000 capacity. The crowd was estimated at a healthy 60,000 at Wembley Stadium in London, and a total of 97,000 fans reportedly attended all three events.

The three venues came together for a performance of the NetAid's theme song, ''New Day,'' which was released last month by Bono And Wyclef Jean. The song was performed by several artists -- including Jean, Bono, Jewel, Sheryl Crow and unannounced guest Michael Stipe -- at Giants Stadium, and was beamed via satellite to the big screens at the other two venues.

By Tuesday morning (10/12), event organizers still hadn't revealed how much money NetAid raised for charity. Most tickets were priced at between $30 and $70, and proceeds from Saturday's concerts were earmarked for African countries and refugees of Kosovo.

The day before NetAid took place, the Washington Post reported that two of the event's organizers -- Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover -- quit the organization after a dispute over fundraising control with event sponsor Cisco Systems. In another bit of bad news for the event, cable network VH1, which originally was to broadcast 10 hours of concert footage, only aired seven.

Management of the NetAid website will be turned over later this year to the United Nations Development Programme, which will run the site indefinitely for poverty awareness programs.

Organizers hope to reach 1 billion hits on the NetAid site by year's end. The total number of hits received to date hasn't been released.

The TNT cable network will air ''NetAid: A Concert Special'' Wednesday (10/13) at 8 p.m. ET/PT. The two-hour program will feature highlights from the three shows.