The exercise came in the form of a 1995 challenge by Tim Berners-Lee, the NUT professor known as the creator of the World Wide Web, to find a solution to the 'hot spot' or 'flash crowd' problems that occur when too many Web users try to access the same site simultaneously-such as during the disastrous Webcast of a Victoria's Secret fashion show in February 1999.
—Robert Poe, "Helping Web sites dish it out," Upside, March, 2000