Extent
Major news sites or corporate websites are typically engineered to serve large numbers of requests and therefore do not normally exhibit this effect. Websites that fall victim may be hosted on home servers, offer large images or movie files or have inefficiently generated dynamic content (e.g. many database hits for every web hit even if all web hits are requesting the same page). These websites often became unavailable within a few minutes of a story's appearance, even before any comments had been posted. Occasionally, paying Slashdot subscribers (who have access to stories before non-paying users) rendered a site unavailable even before the story was posted for the general readership.
Few definitive numbers exist regarding the precise magnitude of the Slashdot effect, but estimates put the peak of the mass influx of page requests at anywhere from several hundred to several thousand hits per minute. The flood usually peaked when the article was at the top of the site's front page and gradually subsided as the story was superseded by newer items. Traffic usually remained at elevated levels until the article was pushed off the front page, which could take from 12 to 18 hours after its initial posting. However, some articles had significantly longer lifetimes due to the popularity, newsworthiness, or interest in the linked article.
By 2005, reporters were commenting that the Slashdot effect had been diminishing. However, the effect has been seen involving Twitter when some popular tweeters mention a website.
Read more about this topic: Slashdot Effect
Famous quotes containing the word extent:
“To some extent I liken slavery to death.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“The extent to which a parent is able to see a child’s world through that child’s eyes depends very much on the parent’s ability to appreciate the differences between herself and her child and to respect those differences. Your own children need you to accept them for who they are, not who you would like them to be.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“In the extent and proper structure of the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most incident to republican government.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)