Michael Jackson Remembered.... (HD)

A BlackTree Media Production

Produced by Jamaal Finkley and Anthony Idem Jr.

Camera Yev Shrayber

Host Ms. Erica O'Young

http://www.blacktree.tv

By Linnie Rawlinson and Nick Hunt
CNN
LONDON, England (CNN) -- How many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it's just one -- if that one is Michael Jackson.

The biggest showbiz story of the year saw the troubled star take a good slice of the Internet with him, as the ripples caused by the news of his death swept around the globe.

"Between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson," a Google spokesman told CNET, which also reported that Google News users complained that the service was inaccessible for a time. At its peak, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as "volcanic."

As sites fell, users raced to other sites: TechCrunch reported that TMZ, which broke the story, had several outages; users then switched to Perez Hilton's blog, which also struggled to deal with the requests it received.

CNN reported a fivefold rise in traffic and visitors in just over an hour, receiving 20 million page views in the hour the story broke.

Twitter crashed as users saw multiple "fail whales" -- the illustrations the site uses as error messages -- user FoieGrasie posting, "Irony: The protesters in Iran using Twitter as com are unable to get online because of all the posts of 'Michael Jackson RIP.' Well done." The site's status blog said that Twitter had had to temporarily disable its search results, saved searches and trend topics.

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."

The Los Angeles Times, the first news organization to confirm Jackson's death, suffered outages. The site also reported that AOL's instant messenger service had been hit, quoting an AOL statement that said, "AIM was down for approximately 40 minutes this afternoon." The statement said, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

That was backed up by AOL consumer adviser Regina Lewis, who said that, although the numbers weren't in yet, the day should prove a historic milestone for mobile Internet traffic.

"It could go down as the biggest mobile event in history," Lewis said. She felt that was in part because people were checking news headlines from work. "People wanted to keep tabs on this story, but if you're an accountant you're supposed to be working on your spreadsheet. So they were using their personal cell phones to do so," she explained. Watch Lewis explain the overload »

While the scale of response to Jackson's death might be unprecedented, the pattern of it was not, Lewis added.

"With the advent of social networking, we saw a sequence that we traditionally see around the death of celebrities," she said.

"One, people clamor for the latest news; two, they share it; three, they react; and then the next stage, which we're seeing alive and well on video sites ... are tributes. In the case of Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett, [people have] a lot to work with in terms of images and video," she said.

By Friday morning, news sites seemed to be coping with traffic, but Jackson fan site mjfanclub.net was still performing sluggishly. Mashable.com reported that tributes to, and remarks upon, Michael Jackson's death were responsible for 30 percent of tweets.

As with any breaking piece of news on the Web, the reports of Jackson's death sparked something of a feeding frenzy -- and with that came rumors that dragged in other celebrities completely unconnected to the "King of Pop's" death.

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[a999op]

OK I'm sick and tired of this nonsense. That you people make. You are the one who killed MJ and that goes for all the people who made MJs life a living hell. So actually kids are just kids. You killed MJ. And you know what happens to murderer and heartless people. They go to hell. I'm glad MJ is the king of pop and I hope his music tortures your ears. OH yeah people copy him. So technically you die sooner. Hopefully MJs music kills because you chose to believe those white-ass liars

[grumbly123]

i cried so much when the helicopter left cause she was like

Thats Michael Jackson leaving us in person but not in spirit

[Deidaaraartisabang]

she said " one of pop music greatest icons " lol what a dumb bitch he is the king of pop

wait wait

he is the king of MUSIC

[tj77ization]

So unfortunate that MJ couldn't even make some decent friends in his maturity, because he so so abused as a child. It's instructive that MJ wound up looking like a combination of a witch and a scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. He needed lots of therapy but the wounds were very deep and MJ was who he was because of the abuse I suppose.

[simplelife008]

why is this asian reporter desperately trying to look white? how sad...

[wolfxinstein]

Rest in peace MJ

[rjhshine101]

Shame on you a million times who continue to judge him even after death. What did you accomplish ? May the judgment that you pronounced be thrown back to you, I know it will.He was investigated by FBI for 17 years but found nothing and yet you continue to accuse him of a crime where he was found not guilty by a court of law.God forgive me but curse be upon you.If you do not like Michael Jackson then don"t bother to see videos about him.

[SxChampagne32]

For the music world, his death was a terrible thing. But for the family's of those children he molested, it's a great thing. So great to see that everyone forgets about those kids.

[therealbcb]

:I

[qaching]

lol that nigga is real talk

rip king of pop

[GiustiziaLuca]

Wow I still can't beleive I was there for this and I'm watching myself speak with Erico..such a beauty and such a historical day

[Michaelnews2010]

@MJForever878