The performer Michael Jackson’s death last month has proved to show the beginnings of a new era for the internet. His memorial service that took place in Los Angeles on the 7th of July increased global web traffic by up to as much as 33 per cent during the event.
Internet analysts and industry watchers have said that the power of the web has proven its ability to share information, allow people to interact and produce content on the day of Jackson’s memorial service.
‘The web lets us connect and see the story from multiple views unlike TV,’ said Mashable’s Ben Parr.
Mr Parr believed that the Jackson memorial service would be the biggest event ever on the web. Akamai, which is a streaming media service that deals with 20 per cent of the world’s internet traffic, said it was the second largest day on their network. The company went on to report they had close to four million visitors a minute from 10am Pacific Time, around the time the memorial service began.
It was the 25th of June when Michael Jackson’s death was announced that saw the biggest day, with over 4.2 million people visitors looking at news sites online to find out what had happened to the King of Pop.
Facebook also saw this increase during the day of the memorial, as the world’s largest social networking site they reported one million users had posted around 800,000 status updates that were about broadcasts of the service. They also pointed out that although there were 1.8 million updates containing the word ‘Obama’ during the president’s formal ceremony, Jackson’s death had been unexpected whereas the inauguration had been planned for months.
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