In terms of well-known celebrities, few are bigger than Michael Jackson. Love him or hate him, pretty much everyone on the planet knows him. And that caused big problems for a lot of huge websites today with the news of his passing.
It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling.
Various reports had the AOL-owned TMZ, which broke the story, being down at multiple points throughout the ordeal. As a result, Perez Hilton’s hugely popular blog may have failed as people rushed there to try and confirm the news. Then it was the LATimes which had a report saying Jackson was only in a coma rather than dead, so people rushed there, and that site went down. (The LATimes eventually confirmed his passing.)
Meanwhile, CNN wasn’t down, but failed for another reason. CNN first said that Jackson was revived (see screenshot at the bottom) before going to the hospital.
Update: And just in case you didn’t believe this story is dominating the web right now, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are MJ-related. The lone exception is Ed McMahon, who also passed away two days ago. Meanwhile, Twitter search seems to be running about 20 minutes behind.
Update 2: And here’s a tweet in kind of poor taste from Google Maps API team: “Sad about MJ & FF? Cheer up by watching some Geo I/O talks.” Way to promote yourself at the expense of someone’s death, Google. Classy.
Update 3: And Google has apologized.
Update 4: And now Twitter has had to remove features like Search on its main site to stay afloat.
Update 5: Here’s a statement from AOL regarding TMZ during the news:
our internal records show that the site didn’t experience any interruption due to traffic. It’s possible that some people may have had trouble accessing the site due to local network issues, but TMZ was not down.
yea, fb and twitter are both flooding with this.
I found out on http://anonboard.com at first I thought it was a troll to be honest. Crazy. This makes me feel old, celebrities that I actually remember are croaking.
Indeed, the tubes are getting tied with all these deaths.
So did MJ have rope around his neck and balls like david carradine? Was he wearing womens underwear?
Why, do you like that too?
He Was Bound And Gagged By The Money Tray.
That is wrong >>>> Michael Jackson is a legend and he has helped so many people and touched so many people with his music.
R.I.P MICHEL JACKSON
he was so the king of pop.
R.I.P M.J
You are so right he was and always will be the king of pop>>>
YES it is aVARY Sad Day dose anyone know as of yet why MJ died beside the heart attack? It is varry scarry for Micheal Jackson to die at 50 years of age
I know three other people that have died and yes I am sadden about this all. yes we do need something to cheer all of use up. jeantauzel@sbcglobal.net write me back soon ok talk latter on this week.
SO SHOCKED ABOUT MICHEL JACKSON’S passing!
Do You Think this could Have been a Terist attack was the doctor an imigrine?
OMG THIS IS A SHOCK!
The King Of Pop Is Dead =(
R.I.P
Michel Jackson
Holy cow I can’t believe how stupid that comment was on so many levels!
relax. is first day using letters and words
I JUST MISS HIM HE WAS SO DANG SEXII
yea i cant get onto the search feature in twitter
Try
http://tweetnews.appspot.com
for getting authoritative content with twitter speed on topics like michael jackson
Yea it was crazy trying to discern what was real and what was not. TMZ had the story right probably 10-12 minutes before the majors started to confirm.
this is just awful. he was awesome. The king is gone. noooo
“Heal the world, make it a better place….”
I hope someone picks up that song and, with permission from the Jackson family, starts a movement fighting poverty, disease, hunger with that song.
That is one of the best ways we can entertain him while he watches the world he leaves rich with his music and poor without him.
He was the internet of hearts of music lovers and plain old good folks around the world. He made music lovers out of ordinary people with songs like those. Hope they decide up there to resurrect him, we need a voice like that on our side.
Yea i notice i got some fail whales at twitter. He crashed twitter.
RIP MJ
I wonder what would happen to some of these networks if something even bigger happened. Something to think about
No one is bigger than Michael Jackson. He crashed everything online.
Yes He Was Not.
R.I.P MICHEL JACKON
the king of pop dead!!
what bigger – like wars or the turmoil in iran, or what? world is screwed up.
NPR and CNN says he died – I am sure he died.
Jeff Goldblum is also dead, and Walter Cronkite is on his death bed.
Mager, no one can find any real links about Jeff Goldblum. I think someone just started that rumor to jump on the “celebrity death” bandwagon.
Farrah Fawcett actually died today too, far sadder
You are right, my bad :\
Jeff Goldblum died…he’s not dead, dumbass.
*.mediafetcher.com links are bogus, fake news stories.
Jeff might not be dead, but Farah Fawcett is, unfortunately…..
Ummmm…. source that says Goldblum is dead? Cronkite is ill yeah, but a quick search of major news outlets doesn’t have anything about JG.
This fake news is bringing New Zealand Police site down and the news sites there have been dragging.
How sad am I? I found out that MJ died by reading it on TC – Man! I need to get out more!
I’m not sure what the stats are regarding traffic on Twitter vs Digg, but the story on Digg hit 6,000 diggs incredibly fast and the site held up surprisingly well from my viewpoint.
http://digg.com..._Jackson_Dies_2
Probably the only truly newsworthy story to hit the front page of Digg in months.
Perhaps “Web 3.0″ (”Web Squared,” whatever O’Reilly) should be about the scalable/stable web.
These are websites going down. Their stability is based on the choices they make when buying servers, borderware and connections to the network backbone. A lot of these sits may not completely host their web infrastructure. They may own servers but go tyo an ISP for wires. A good stable site owns servers, the trunk to the backbone (T3, OCx or better) and hook right to the internet backbone. Cheesy sites just have servers hosted at some pissant ISP.
http://www.Chil...terTracker.com/ was on amazon cloud and stayed up under the strain
Your site sucks.
Yesterday that would have been a good joke.
Timing is everything.
Yo, you making fun of a dead man? Show some respect bro !!!
You’re saying CNN failed because they didn’t rush to attribute a huge story to a gossip website?
Yes, that is what they are saying. ZOMG!!! Twitter and TMZ beat old media by 10 minutes out of a purely lucky guess!
Unfortunately, it’s true. As trashy as TMZ is, they broke the story first. Credit where it’s due.
amazon cloud is a joke
People were rushing to Perez Hilton because right before the King oF Pop died Perez said he was faking and that it was a way for him to get out of a performance. Now the asshole is trying to save face, go to his twitter. I am now joining in the boycott of Perez Hilton. And hope others will do the same.
yeah! Perez Hilton should be boycott! we’re backing you up!
geez, what kinda title is that.
Wow, RIP. He may have gone a bit batty at the end, but this is Michael Jackson we are talking about – the biggest star of all time. I expect the web to crash under this news…
MG, This is a very poor timing for this comment but..
do you think that this flood of Michael Jackson Facebook status updates is a Big Break for the ‘open’ Facebook Updates? Especially now it would be indexed by search engines. What do you think?
That’s interesting. We shall see.
micheal was the best!
So TMZ/LA Times ‘confirmed’ MJ’s death, and others just followed the lead. Who are TMZ’s sources?
greatest of all time
get a grip. he was a talented singer but he destroyed some young boys lives. The world is a better place without a sicko like him.
The man died. Do You care? Hope noone sheds a tear at your deathbed. MJ RIP.
your a dummy! he has helped so many people and that boy thing was a lie.
It’s terribly sad, I also picked up on it here – http://imod.co....l-jackson-dead/
Put a couple videos up. Careful, listening to Heal The World is quite sad
The Ed McMahon tweets are all referencing Michael Jackson too, think you can call it 10/10.
Probably true.
The entire web collapsed? And topics of interest on the entire web are defined by Twitter trends?
Get a grip TC.
best performer to have ever lived.
we have lost many stars before but we have never lost a galaxy.. and thats what MJ was.
love him or hate him, we just lost the king of music.
Well put
King of pop, maybe. King of music, not by a long shot.
get real. He was talented but many many more talented musicians alive and dead then he could have ever been.
welcome to web2.0: muliredundant contentless claimed info quoting the same source resulting in a web breakdown
(TMZ -> times -> LA Times)
Wow, this is so sudden.
I don’t think the web has seen a story break like this in a long time.
You guys are sick traffic whores
Please don’t offend the whores
i cant believe he just died just like that now we wont have a moon walk idol i loved him a lot and now hes gone. just like that in a flash!!!! WE LOVE YOU MICHEAL JACKSON wel;l see u when we get up there
REST IN PEACE
yeah… that’s true…RIP… no more pains (physically, emotionally), no paparatzzi can hurt you now, no media can hurt you now.. you will now have a truly quit place where everything is nice, kind and gentle… Rest In Peace my friend… Rest In Peace….
Not impressed with the Google Maps API tweet.
Ditto.
That Tweet has been deleted now…
This is really asshame. I was out (Sweden, Malmö) with my friends having a drink and suddenly the dj stop the music and wait for a couple of minuts, no one react, I guess the news doesnt go that fast. Anyway he played a tune from MR MJ. The king of the POP. YOU ARE THE BEST.
R.I.P.
P.S. By the way… my best memory: Triller
//Anton
it’s fake, he can’t die.
i had that creepy thought too…is that possible?
I can see the future.
http://twitter....uses/2334037083
I love Jackson.
You guys should see what Class Act perez recently said about Micheal Jackson’s demise. Obviously he edited this part of the post out recently.
“We knew something like this would happen!!
Michael Jackson was taken by ambulance from his Holmby Hills home to a nearby Los Angeles hospital on Thursday afternoon!! Supposedly, the singer went into cardiac arrest and the paramedics had to administer CPR!!!
His mother is even on the way to visit him!!!
We are dubious!!
Jacko pulled a similar stunt when he was getting ready for his big HBO special in ‘95 when he “collapsed” at rehearsal! He was dragging his heels on that just like his upcoming 50 date London residency at the 02 Arena, of which he already postponed the first few dates!!! Either he’s lying or making himself sick, but we’re curious to see if he’s able to go on!!! Get your money back, ticket holders!!!!”
CURSE YOU PEREZ HILTON!!! CURSE YOU!!!
Been a bad week for Perez… but then again, it’s not like he hasn’t asked for it.
Re MJ: it’s sad news, indeed. I was a DJ when Billie Jean came out, then Thriller… Magical moments. They don’t make music like that anymore. RIP Michael.
twitter is down and the whole internet is slow right now, in jordan at least
yey, even my intranet just slowed down (nope, never blame the router!!111)
twitter is back now
This article speaks truth… I noticed this post on my Twitter while trying (and failing) to do a search on the site.
Akamai’s Net Usage Index for News…
http://www.akam...news/index.html
Kind of cool…
also… real time web monitor
http://www.akam...y/dataviz1.html
Oh THANK YOU for coming through and not leaving me high and dry you twitter watchdog you.
ye twitter was down for a while… it sure gonna be the top trending topic for coming week..RIP MJ and Farah…
Sad to see he passes.
Now he has to deal with the big guy on his pedophile ways on Earth.
Rest in peace Michael. You will be missed and your legacy will live on.
Amazing, a child molester and all around out-of-touch-with-reality freak cripples the web. Talk about a cyber attack from the other side.
fuck off Jeff… say what you want he did a lot for the world and reached a lot of people… it is just sad for a lot of people… man I wish I could drill you… troll
I think you’ll find he also touched a lot of people too
“man I wish I could drill you” – another perv cyber attack.
Amazing…another asshole troll with nothing worthwhile to say.
Ditto
Jeff the thing is a lot of us struggle with the children thing you make light of… but at the same time for me back in the 80’s when he would do those video releases.. it was the only time in my life my family got along.. and I am probably not alone in moments like this.. you make light because you think you are funny but you trample on a lot of peoples feelings.. at the end of the day we are all horribly flawed.. but people love us.. someone loves you… and maybe instead of getting a rush of other peoples pain you might want to show the same respect you likely hope people show those who love you.. it is called being human.. this isn’t about saying MJ was a good or bad person.. god decides that.. it is about feeling sad.. now I do not expect a troll to be human.. but I can hope.
Nice comeback genius
Shaun and Jeff, Fuck you BOTH.
The New York Times had it within 7 minutes of Jackson being picked up in the ambulance, and radio had it within minutes of his death. I heard it in the supermarket. Lots of people began dancing. Old media still works pretty good. Not everybody is on Twitter.
I’m guessing you mean the NYT had it on their website. and the radio station probably got it off the ap wire or maybe even some other news/gosip website…seems pretty “new media” to me…
He will always be my favorite James Bond
I remember watching MJ on the Motown Special back in 1983 when he did his moonwalk for the first time. I was stunned and became a fan immediately. The man was sure as hell gifted.
“…Jackson has attributed the dance that he now is credited for, to ordinary children, whom he saw doing a variation of what we now call the moonwalk…” -wikipedia-
Now we know where the perv got his inspiration from.
This makes me want to have Push notifications about trends on Tweetie
Very sad news.
In regards to Twitter, I was watching a search for “Jackson” and every time it updated it said between 1000-22,000 new tweets were available, although mostly it was around the 3000 mark.
At one point the search was lagging behind by 20 minutes, but it appears to have settled at 2 minutes now. Twitterfox also started getting connection errors.
This news has clearly had an impact on most people who have heard about it.
Hey sad news people,,,,
Yeah, nothing is hidden from the one who created Heavens and the earth, to whom we’ll have to give an account ….probably MJ is sure to give an account to God for what he has done on Planet Earth….
Condolences
Chetan Mantri
http://ilovedmi...haeljackson.com
Show your love. Screw you haters :p
up the system…it abused and used him.
Two of those trending topics spell “Michael” as “Micheal.” “FAIL,” as the kids these days like to say.
You know, if Twitter Search is ever going to be a real search engine, they need to work on basic googley features like recognizing misspellings and merging results for variant spellings.
(Hope I didn’t throw anybody off by actually talking about technology on a technology site.)
apparently there were so many tweets that even the volume of misspellings was huge
No duh. That was the kind of the point, and the reason for my comment.
If Twitter has some proper term-merging, Jackson’s death might not take over as much of the Trending Topics list. If Twitter knew what the hell it was doing, it would write an algorithm that merged at least three of those topics into one “Michael Jackson” topic instead of a braindead reiteration of typographical errors.
So, Twitter is not technologically perfect, huh, what with the non-term-merging and so forth? You’d think after twenty years in business, they would get something right, finally.
To me, this is about as shocking as when Tupac died.
Now that’s the only funny thing I’ve heard on what’s been an otherwise sad day…
Tupac did a lot for music, but Tupac isn’t on the same level as MJ
disagree. Tupac’s music wasn’t particularly popular while he was alive. Nor was his music different/creative/interesting/etc. His relevance is tied to this misguided idea that he was a social outcast fighting for justice. all while glorifying violence, drugs and hateful attitudes toward women. but, ya know, he was a “complicated” person filled with “contradictions”. yeah.
you don’t compare drug dealer music to MJs music??????
He was a drug dealer asshole.
WASNT!