When a small website gets overloaded with traffic after being featured on a larger site it is known as the Slashdot effect. This has since been colloquially known as the Reddit effect, as the larger website is quite often Reddit. The Reddit effect has also come to mean the viral increase in traffic to kickstarter campaigns people who advertise their innovative ideas on Reddit often find that donations increase exponentially. By putting their ideas on Reddit they are receiving free advertising, and if the product is interesting then it will probably be voted up, giving even more donations. This effect often renders the page unusable a site which normally gets 300 people looking at it may suddenly be read by 30,000 people, and the operator simply cannot withstand this much pressure.
A 21 year old History graduate looking for someone to listen to his ramblings. Lover of comic books, movies and all other superhero related things. Published in The Independent, always looking for interesting things to write about...Follow me on Twitter at @samclements1993, and check out my blog: http://samuelclements.wordpress.com/
