The day Michael Jackson died: 10 Internet facts

BANGALORE, INDIA: When Michael Jackson wrote the lines "If you want to make a world a better place, just look at yourself and then make a change..." little did he know what he would leave behind after his death. When he crooned 'Beat It', he didn't know it would be impossible for any legend to beat his popularity that he had well nurtured with perfect beats, passionate music and awesome lyrics.

Three years after his death, his tracks still rock the world. His name is etched in the heart of his fans, who cherish his every song.

Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 of propofol intoxication after suffering a respiratory arrest at his home on North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills neighborhood in Los Angeles. Soon after the news of his death came in, his fans were in for a shock. The Internet posts by his fans had crashed Twitter, TMZ.com and latimes.com.

Here is what happened the day Michael Jackson passed away.

1. The first reports that Jackson had suffered a cardiac arrest, then that he had died, came from TMZ.com, a Los Angeles-based celebrity news website. TMZ published: "Michael Jackson passed away today at the age of 50." The Los Angeles Times website confirmed the report at 2:51 pm PDT. The news spread quickly online, causing websites to slow down and crash from user overload.

2. Google initially believed that the input from millions of people searching for "Michael Jackson" meant that the search engine was under attack. Twitter reported a crash, as did Wikipedia at 3:15 pm.

3. The Wikimedia Foundation reported nearly a million visitors to Jackson's biography within one hour, probably the most visitors in a one-hour period to any article in Wikipedia's history.

4. AOL Instant Messenger went down for 40 minutes. AOL called it a "seminal moment in Internet history", adding, "We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth.

5. Around 15% of Twitter posts–or 5,000 tweets per minute–reportedly mentioned Jackson after the news broke, compared to the 5% recalled as having mentioned the Iranian elections or the flu pandemic that had made headlines earlier in the year.

6. Overall, web traffic ranged from 11% to at least 20% higher than normal.

7. The British soap opera EastEnders added a last-minute scene, in which one character discussed the news with another, to the June 26 episode.

8. During the same period, the three major U.S. networks' evening newscasts–ABC's World News, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News–devoted 34 percent of their broadcast time to him.

9. According to an analysis released by the Global Language Monitor, "72 hours after his death, Jackson jumped to the No. 9 spot for the global print and electronic media. For Internet, blogs and social media, Jackson jumped to the No. 2, only trailing the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States.

10. Michael Okwu of NBC News outside UCLA Medical CenterStatistics published by the Pew Research Center suggested that two out of three Americans believed the coverage of Jackson's death was excessive, while 3% felt it was insufficient.

Now, pay your tribute to Michael Jackson by stating your favourite Jackson track in the comments section below. Also, let us know why it is your favourite.

(Source: Wikipedia)