6 Trends So Popular They Knocked Trend Hunter Offline

Over the last two years, Trend Hunter has outgrown its server on several occasions, often marked by killer trends that knocked the server offline.  This month, several of these trends pushed our traffic up to nearly 3,000,000 monthly views.  Accordingly, we are about to make our final server migration.  I say final because we are making a massive upgrade to a scalable technology, which should enable us to smoothly adjust to bumps in traffic.

To commemorate this occasion, I’ve added a list of the trends over the last two years that have been SO POPULAR that they knocked our server offline.  What fun.

Most Popular Trends of 2006 (Dec 2006 - Shared Hosting)

Back in 2006, we were on a shared hosting plan.  We only had a couple hundred thousand viewers a month.  Accordingly, the site went offline when I wrote a collection of articles that were titled, “Most popular trends in X category.” However, I didn’t really code the pages properly, and spikes of traffic were enough to knock our shared hosting account offline.  The most popular article itself no longer exists. 

Britney Spears Shaves Her Head (Posted within Hours, #5 on Google, Bam!)

Britney Spears bald?  That’s right.  In a fit of anxiety, Britney Spears has shaved her own head completely bald.  Will this start a new trend of teenage girls shaving their head?  OR - more likely - will this mark the final chapter of the book titled, ‘The Downfall of Britney’.  If we rewind a fe… [More]

Heath Ledger’s Final Portrait - Vincent Fantauzzo’s Painting

(TREND HUNTER) Australia’s The Daily Telegraph reports that Melbourne artist Vincent Fantauzzo put the finishing touches on his painting of Heath Ledger at his Docklands studio the day before the star was found dead in his NY apartment.  Ledger sat for Fantauzzo on his last visit home to Perth, Australia in Decem… [More]

Redesigning the Eiffel Tower - (Our first on the front page of Digg)

Serero Architects have won the open competition to redesign any of the Eiffel Tower’s public reception and access areas as a celebration of the 120th birthday of Gustave Eiffel’s original creation.  Serero’s project plans to extend the top floor plate of the tower by attaching a high performance … [More]

Top 40 Pranks - Prank Ideas for April Fool’s Day (300,000 Page Views in 2 days)

Looking for the top pranks of all time?  With April Fool’s Day just around the corner, it’s time to ‘get your prank on’.  Accordingly, we’ve prepared a cluster of our favorite pranks.  Hopefully you can use this list to inspire your own pranks. Be warned that many of these pranks require a lot … [More]

Top 50 Shockvertisements - Controversial Ads (500,000 page views in 2 days)

Creating an emotional connection is crucial to effective marketing campaigns. One common technique is to arouse the feeling of shock. Some of these ad campaigns really push the limits of what could be considered an effective visual. They include print ads, TV spots, online virals and guerrilla mark… [More]

What will be next?  I don’t know, but if it knocks the server farm offline, it will be amazing!