Internet traffic for the Apple media event has overwhelmed the infrastructure of many of the largest tech sites, crashing servers and interrupting efforts to live blog this afternoon's announcements of new iPhones. Among the sites experiencing downtime were Cnet, Engadget, Ars Technica, Gizmodo, Mashable and The Verge. While major Apple keynotes often generate high traffic levels for tech web sites, the simultaneous downtime for live blogs across a range of major sites - most of whom run live blogs for major events on a regular basis - appears to reflect an extraordinary level of interest in today's announcements. Here's what the early moments of the Apple event looked like on Twitter:
The traffic burst appears to have been very focused, as data from Akamai doesn't show any noticeable jump in traffic to news sites as the Apple event began.
