Pop Sensation Michael Jackson Crumbles Internet Sites
07.06.09
Last week one of the most iconic and influential pop stars of all times died, an event never seen in the history of online news and search engines was registered, a cyber flooding of curious and mourning fans strikingly took the web by storm. Michael Joseph Jackson died at age 50 in his Bel-Air (L.A) mansion last Thursday June 25th after suffering a cardiac arrest, entered in a deep coma and passed away. The breaking news made millions of online Michael Jackson´s fans rush to their computers to query about the tragic news and to dig into MJ´s biography and memorabilia.
The high volume of clicks to news sites such as CNN, ABC, NBC, Wikipedia and other news sources made search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Bing think that it was an online Hacker attack and many websites were blocked and paralyzed for some time. Record breaking traffic spikes on websites were registered on Thursday afternoon, beating Barack Obama´s presidential election victory news with over 15 million clicks in one day, Michael Jackson´s news had more than 16 million.
“The spike in searches related to Michael Jackson´s death was so huge that Google initially mistook it for an automated attack,” said R.J. Pittman, director of product management for Google. With a record breaking keyword search “Michael Jackson Dead” all search engines were swamped for quite a while and uncertainty ruled the day.
The impact that this news had on the Internet has everyone wondering what will be the next big news that might beat Jackson´s death; probably it will be a while for that news to be beaten but eventually it will happen. Search engines and online communities will have to learn how to handle this type of news and click volume, the tip of the iceberg was at sight and now it’s time to go deeper into cyber waters to see how new high volume breaking news will be handled and assimilated.
Search engines have become pillar sites to consult and query of any given information or doubt web surfers may have and companies are spending a lot of time and cash improving the way human online inquires mechanics work to improve and have better and accurate results. This kind of news impact will have top search engine analysts figuring out and restructuring high volume processes in online websites.
Not only search engines and news sites were jammed by the death of the King of pop, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter also registered high volumes of traffic and new content entrances to millions of accounts, demonstrating the ongoing social trend of online communities and its impact and cultural acceptance.
An extraordinary news or event can make millions of online surfers immediately click and direction their attention to an event or hot topic. The influence and reach that search engines, news sites, blogs and the Internet itself has in today’s fast paced cyber global societies may have is just an example of how little we know about online marketing, advertising strategies and other advantages online culture may have and impact in many different market niches.
Michael Jackson´s death is a tragedy that will continue to be followed through years to come, and the influence of the whole cyber world will continue to grow and settle in the future. For News purposes and other breaking news that will eventually blow the web away and provoke another unusual day on the web is an eye opener of how strong internet dependence and attention has become and how rapidly it has been growing along its young and premature lifespan.
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