Culture

Michael Jackson Death Slows Down Wikipedia, Google, Facebook

by Truemorist | June 26, 2009 at 11:06 am

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Michael Jackson's death sparked a massive rush to the Internet, and search engines found themselves pushed to the limit. Google thought it was under attack, but it was really just kajillions of MJ fans trying to find out if he had really died or not. Wikipedia found its Michael Jackson entry getting simultaneously edited to the point of breaking, and edits were frozen as editors tried to either correct each other or just make stuff up.

I found Facebook had slowed to a crawl, performing even worse than it normally does. As for Twitter...well, what do you think?

Few sites were spared. Jackson's sudden, unexpected death led so many people to search Google for information that the search engine's software believed it was under attack, sending searchers a message saying "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application."

The internet was having a tough day keeping up with curiosity-seekers as it was, what with Iran and Farrah Fawcett. This just broke it. The intertubes cracked, and I think a few lolcats may have spilled out.

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Writingprincess (not verified)

at 13:45 on June 26th, 2009

No offense to "the Messiah," but Michael Jackson wasn't just an American icon he was known around the world and had a freakishly cult following built upon decades of talent Barack Obama, though popular, can't even sit in the same stratosphere as M.J. . If the U.S. President is hurt sure people would want to seek information but Michael dying was a truly global event. It's no wonder the computers got shut down.

local internet marketing (not verified)

at 11:58 on June 26th, 2009

As an Internet Marketer, in this day and age I find this amazing that the biggest computers in the world can not even handle communication flow with the death of a, alebeit, major celebrity. What if the US came under attack, the president is assassinated, the next major act of mother nature or other big celebrities pass or are charged and followed. Imagine, would the Internet have kept up trying to stream O.J. Simpson famous drive? Video is the future of the Internet and if the biggest computers can not handles the flow of images and text with a major event, we're so far behind the times trying to push streaming video.

Thomas Castillo (not verified)

at 12:26 on June 26th, 2009

This is another reason why our campaign wants to give tech businesses the incentive to come to Illinois. We already have data centers from firms such as Microsoft. Let's build massive data centers/server farms not only in the Chicagoland area, but also throughout the entire state of Illinois.

In addition, we want to make Illinois the "green" capital of the world. Everyone always thinks about solar energy plants and wind farms, but the equipment has to be manufactured somewhere. Let's manufacture everything in Illinois!

Thomas Castillo- Candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois