This is not what Larry Niven had in mind when he wrote about “flash crowds”. A true flash crowd is a spontaneous, unplanned gathering that occurs at or near a newsworthy event. The online equivalent is the so-called “slashdot effect“, where Web servers are overwhelmed by a sudden surge in traffic caused by hundreds of thousands of Slashdot readers following links on the main page.

The “planned mobs” organized by Rob Zazueta are interesting, but really nothing more than performance art. They are not flash crowds.