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Obama chat brings reddit more than 850,000 visits

2012_09_redditPresident Obama increased Reddit’s traffic to more than 850,000 unique visits during the first hour of his IAMA last week on the site, the company announced Wednesday.

Obama’s unannounced appearance brought 865,092 unique visits to the site up from 518,312 before it started. At its peak, the president’s chat showed 198,000 active concurrent users with the chat receiving more than 100,000 pageviews per minute.

In the first five minutes, there were 37 comments. By the 10-minute mark, redditors had made 278 comments. Within half an hour that number jumped to 5,266 and was over 10,000 by the end of the first hour.

“Did it go perfectly smooth? Nope. Is this the absolute perfect format for politicians to answer questions? Nope. But it worked, and it was a big step, not just for reddit, but for online communities everywhere,” the company said. “No matter how you feel about the IAMA, reddit, the President, or politics in general, we hope that what took place this past Wednesday will inspire other online communities and start-ups, and encourage other politicians to seek out more ways to talk directly with their constituents.”

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