flash crowd n.
a sudden increase in the number of visitors viewing a (small or niche) website, esp. after the site has been mentioned in a more prominent venue
[after the 1973 Larry Niven short story โFlash Crowdโ, in which crowds assemble through teleportation]
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2005 Accelerando 14
Charles Stross
bibliography
Just then a bandwidth load as heavy as a pregnant elephant sits down on Manfredโs head and sends clumps of humongous pixilation flickering across his sensorium: Around the world, five million or so geeks are bouncing on his home site, a digital flash crowd alerted by a posting from the other side of the bar.
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2006 Rainbow's End xx. 221
Vernor Vinge
And network stats showed that a flash crowd situation was possible on top of that.
Last modified 2020-12-16 04:08:47
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