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PDF of Prop 8 Decision Goes Viral in 24 Minutes
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This afternoon's Proposition 8 ruling is one of the most viral PDFs in web 2.0 history, with as many as 6,000 views per second, according to GigaOm.
News of US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to overturn the proposition (today's coverage: 'Overturned', 'What They're Saying', and 'Can't Marry Yet') to ban gay marriage, which California voters approved in 2008, spread like wildfire online.
But it wasn't just the news - it was the ruling itself. Thanks to popular document archiving and embedding services like Scribd and DocStoc, blogs and mainstream media alike can quickly access public documents and present them directly to readers (see the Prop 8 PDF below).
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According to Mashable:
Scribd CEO Trip Adler was quoted by GigaOM saying that while most documents the company considers “viral” reach 100,000 views within 24 hours, the Prop 8 ruling had reached 100,000 views within 24 minutes. Its propagation has since slowed, and it’s now sitting at just over 200,000. The Internet is fickle — we all know that — but that first burst of interest can be significant.
Photo: Molly McKay of Marriage Equality USA (Eric Risberg / AP)
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