In addition to shock, Michael Jackson's death rocked the Internet as it struggled to accommodate online searching from users wanting to confirm the news and express their grief.
Google Trends rates the Jackson story as volcanic at its peak when users experience difficulty accessing information between 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. on Tuesday June 25, 2009.
Many fan sites and social networking sites had buckled and some even ground to a halt as discussion about Jackson's heart attack, and ultimate death, took hold.
Wikipedia saw a flurry of activity, with close to 500 edits made to Jackson's entry in less than 24 hours. CNET reported that by 3:15 p.m. PT, Wikipedia seemed to be "temporarily overloaded."
Google said Friday it thought it was under attack when a barrage of “Michael Jackson” searches pelted its servers Thursday afternoon as news spread of the entertainer’s sudden death.
For about 25 minutes people looking for news about Jackson were greeted with a page which suggests the query was automated and would not be honored without the completion of a CAPTCHA-like challenge. “To protect our servers, we can’t process your request right now,” it said.
Overall, global traffic spiked 19 percent during the ceremony. CNN had 9.7 million people watching live video streams and Yahoo had 5 million. The BBC's live stream was tapped 410,000 times.
Twitter users went nuts during the memorial service, with the top ten most popular topics all relating to Jackson and his memorial service.
The term "Michael Jackson" generated 80,000 tweets per hour in the 24 hours following the news of his death.
Over in Facebook country, there were 6000 Jackson-related updates per minute.
Michael Jackson tops the charts following his death holding the top nine positions on the Billboard Top Pop Catalogue Album charts.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, the singer’s “Number Ones” is at No. 1 with 108,000 (an increase of 2,340%) while “The Essential Michael Jackson” and “Thriller” are in the Nos. 2 and 3 slots with 102,000 and 101,000, respectively.
The 415,000 albums sold at the end of June 2009 was nearly 40% more than what Jackson’s catalogue had sold the entire year up through June 21 (297,000).
By July 8 Nielsen SoundScan reported sales of 800,000 copies in the U.S. almost double sales from the previous week.
While some fans have opted to purchasing records and twittering approximately a dozen fans have committed suicide in their grief.
President and owner of Michael's biggest online fan club, MJJcommunity.com Mr Gary Taylor has connected more than 14,000 online users and has 30 staff worldwide.
The fan club is only a pixel of the billions reportedly mourning the loss of Michael and celebrating his legacy of music and dance.
“A seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth” released in a statement from global and internet media services giant AOL.
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