Google, Twitter and other sites could not stand the traffic of Michael Jackson fans

The King of Pop Music has gained star status long before the Internet, but the Internet is also influenced by Michael Jackson in the moments after his death.

The news of the death of Michael Jackson caused a massive surge in Internet traffic on Thursday evening, temporarily blocking Google and adding a huge amount of traffic to popular sites such as Twitter and BBC News.

The Press Association reports that so many people went to Google to check on Jackson’s early death reports that Google News servers interpreted the search for “Michael Jackson” as an automated attack in about 30 minutes.

The BBC News website reported that UK traffic was 48% higher than usual at 4am on Friday, while Twitter traffic also jumped.

Keynote Systems, a provider of measuring and testing solutions for the Internet and mobile services on demand, said on Thursday that many major news websites have become almost inaccessible to users. This peak has exceeded most recent important news events and online marketing campaigns .

Toward the evening of Thursday, the time of the US Pacific coast, all the major news sites, including the ABC, AOL, LA Times, and CBS, began to show a noticeable slowdown in performance.

Shawn White, Keynote’s director of external operations, said: “The average load time for news sites has doubled from less than 4 seconds to almost 9 seconds. During the same period, the average site availability from the index fell from almost 100% to 86%. The index returned to normal at 9:15 p.m. EDT (US Atlantic Time). ”

Ethan Zuckerman, a man from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, said Jackson quickly became the most popular topic on the micro-blogging site as soon as he was rushed to the hospital on Thursday.

“My Twitter search script sees that approximately 15% of all Twitter posts mention Michael Jackson,” Mr. Zuckerman wrote on his Twitter page , “I have never seen Iran or swine flu reach more than 5%. "

However, according to reports , at some point Twitter was also unable to cope with the peak traffic.

At 9am on Friday, 5 of the 10 most talked about topics on Twitter were connected to the pop king. Thousands of people switched from AIM to Twitter after the AOL instant messaging service stopped dealing with traffic spikes, according to PC World magazine.

Users from both the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia reported problems. During the 40-minute interruption of AIM, more than 4,000 people turned to Twitter to find out what happened to the AOL service, and unexpectedly discovered that Michael Jackson was hospitalized. Then came reports that the 50-year-old singer had died.

Lost consciousness at his Los Angeles residence, Jackson was rushed to hospital by orderlies before his death was announced at 2:26 p.m. (21:26 UTC).

The celebrity rumor site TMZ was the first to announce a sensation after leaked information that orderlies had visited the singer’s house.