The Slashdot Effect

News related websites are among the most visited on the internet, and to be able to observe or realize this high hit rate that exists on news websites we need to review what came to be known as the Slashdot Effect.

Stephen Adler made an analysis of three internet publications that revealed the significance of the Slashdot Effect. This three news publications where: Fall Internet World 98 - A View From the Show Floor, Preserving the Information Ecosystem, and An Ode to Richard Stallman. Published on October 20th, 1998; November 14th, 1998; and January 28th,1999 respectively. After this news articles where posted on the internet, the high volume news websites of Slashdot.org, linuxtoday.org and freshmeat.net announced this articles. "Within less that an hour, the hit rate to the system hosting these papers surged." Its this increase on hit rates to the host that came to be known as the Slashdot Effect.

The Fall Internet World 98 article was announced at 8am on the date posted above, 30 minutes later according to Stephen Adler's analysis, the hit rate increased to over 100 hits per minute. This was the first sign of what was going to become known as the Slashdot Effect. Later that same day Linux announced the article; even thought the effect wasn't as drastic as before there was an significant increase on Linux's hit rate. This high increase on the hit rates indicates that news websites are constantly being visited by people surfing the net.

However, Stephens Adlers's analysis doesn't end there, when Linux and Freshmet announced on there website "Preserving the Information Ecosystem" a similar reaction as the one before occured. Linux announced the article on Nov 14 and with in the hour hits to the website sky rocketed for a few hours, for they only publicized the article for 12 hours on there website. On the other hand Freshmeat announced the article on Nov 21; however, they publicized it for several days. Due to this hit per minute on freshmeat website increased on average, not drastically as in Linux, and it maintained for a few days instead of only for a few hours as in Linux case. Once again the hits per minute in both situations increased indicated the constant visiting of news websites.

The last case that Adler studied is probably the most drastic and significant to the Slashdot Effect. "An Ode to Richard Stallman" was announced to members of the LXNY before it had even been finished; therefore, activity on Linux, the hosting website, started increasing even before the article was posted. On Jan 28 at 1pm Linux today posted a text only news article, which may have been the main reason why hits increased drastically and dropped even faster. Slashdot followed Linux and posted the article at 4pm the same day and with in a 15 minute period hits on Slashdot went from 30 hits per minute to 250 hits per minute. A very drastic increase. Evidencing once again, the constant visiting of people navigating the net to news related websites.

In conclusion the slashdot effect is not only a way to measure the high hit rates that occur in news websites, but to reveal and demonstrate that news related websites are among the most visited in the net around the world.

ITS IMPORTANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT ALL THE INFORMATION AND QUOTATIONS WHERRE TAKEN FROM THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE: http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/adler/SDE/SlashDotEffect.html

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