News sites swamped following Michael Jackson's death

This story was updated multiple times after it was originally published, including with a Keynote System statement that it erred in assessing the performance of ABCNews.com and other media news sites.

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(Credit: CNET News)

It turns out many of the Internet's top news sites fared better at handling the glut of traffic following the death of singer Michael Jackson than previously thought.

Keynote Systems, a company that tracks site performance, said Friday that it erred in measuring performance for news sites and issued incorrect information Thursday evening.

Dan Berkowitz, Keynote's spokesman, said the most important thing was to correct the record about ABCNews.com, which he said delivered pages to visitors close to normally during the hour-long traffic spike following Jackson's death. He added that the company is still studying the causes of the error. A representative for Disney, which owns ABC, said the company saw "no dips in performance" as a result of the traffic glut.

While Keynote's assessment of site performance may have been overly bleak, many news sites were slow to deliver pages and in some cases were inaccessible at times.

When news of the iconic performer's death began trickling out, scores of people turned to the Web for information. TMZ broke the news that Jackson, 50, known for producing some of the world's best selling records, including "Thriller" and "Bad," had died Thursday afternoon, but the gossip hub cited only unnamed sources and offered few details. As other news services turned their attention to the story and as the public took to the Web to learn more about the performer's condition, some Web sites began slowing down.

Some Google users complained that the search engine's News area was inaccessible for a time.

A Google representative confirmed that "between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson."

CNN.com appeared to be sluggish delivering Jackson stories at times. In its defense, the news organization said that the site saw 20 million page views and a fivefold increase in traffic (from where it was prior to when news about Jackson's death began widely circulating) in one hour.

Even before Jackson's death, Thursday was a big day for news sites as word of actress Farrah Fawcett's death hit the wires in the morning and continued interest in the scandal surrounding South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

The traffic deluge came swiftly and lasted for about a half hour, according to internal data here at CNET News, which saw twice the normal amount of hourly traffic shortly after word of Jackson's death spread. At sister site CBSNews.com, traffic numbers were five times their normal levels.

On Friday, antivirus vendor Sophos reported on a wave of spam related to Jackson's death that claims to have vital information about the news event. There are no malicious URLs in the spam, but recipients who reply to the message are then providing proof that the e-mail address is legitimate and will likely be targeted in future spam campaigns, the company said.

Corrected on June 26 at 4:07 p.m. PT: Keynote Systems, the source for Web site performance supplied CNET News with incorrect data. ABCNews.com's performance following the death of Michael Jackson was near optimal.

Michael Jackson's death sent U.S. Internet users to news sites and the traffic heated up network traffic. as evidence in these images.

(Credit: Akamai)

[Galen20K]

Its just all so sad lately.

[Mr. Dee]

Rip MJ - Let Sadness see what Happy does, Let Happy be where Sadness was

[fabricejanson]

Today, at 2.26pm(LA Time), one of the brightest flames to ever burn was extinguished forever.
Michael Joseph Jackson was, and always will be the greatest, and no one, how ever much they may try, will ever match his stature or replace this legend.
He has now ascended to the realm of geniuses where he belongs, with the likes of Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G, Bob Marley & Elvis, and as he reigned supreme on earth, he reigns supreme over these over stars also, as the .King Of Music', not just Pop, Rock, or any other genre of music....

R.I.P Michael, we will miss you, and we thank you for all the great memories.

[lvcsslacker]

GEE NO KIDDING? Two big celebrities die in one day, of course there's going to be plenty of traffic. Should have seen what was though about Jeff Goldblum dying today too.

[jcomputm]

Oh my... First the heavy and inmense news coverage on Television, Now it comes to a severe overload on news sites. I am not saying that this is just an idiotic experience about a guy almost equal to the rest of us. I'm saying we should be aware of the amount of people visiting these news sites.

[mjfansmooth]

Memorialize michael by sharing thoughts and memories at themichaeljacksonmemorialsite.com

[karpenterskids]

He was a child molester.

How's that for sharing my thoughts and memories?

[codynews]

Kinda gross to reg a doman (and cnet user name) THAT quickly after death to profit on it. I'm not going to the site but I bet there are ads.

You should be ashamed.

Cody

[Police_States_of_America]

related: http://picturesforsadchildren.com/blog/famous.png

[jacksonmichael5]

Michael Jackson,

Thank you for your music.
Rest in peace!

Chris Partland
http://www.michaeljacksonmemorials.com

[paintedangel]

To Fabricejanson.....You can compare MJ to Tupok and that B.I.G. guy HOW? NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!
Read the post ignoramus! The death of Michael tied up a LOT of the internet for a substantial time....has the death of these people you mention even come close? Elvis maybe but definately NOT Toopog and Not so Notorious! Get a grip!

Michael...I pray you are now free from all the pain and confusion, rest peacefully...you are already missed!

[carlyt1]

The media coverage of Jackson's death is over the top. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?p=1957

[real_rac16]

I never can say goodby, oh no.......why did you have to now Michael. You have left a void that just cannot be filled by anyone else in the music industry. I am happy to now i lived at a time when you mesmerized the world.......oh just look at what other generations to come have missed!

[real_rac16]

I never can say goodby, oh no.......why did you have to now Michael. You have left a void that just cannot be filled by anyone else in the music industry. I am happy to now i lived at a time when you mesmerized the world.......oh just look at what other generations to come have missed!

[real_rac16]

I never can say goodby, oh no.......why did you have to now Michael. You have left a void that just cannot be filled by anyone else in the music industry. I am happy to now i lived at a time when you mesmerized the world.......oh just look at what other generations to come have missed!

[epcraig]

I dunno, it's not as though wikipedia didn't get the update before Clearwire and their ilk finally noticed and went to all Michael all the time.

[deowll]

The one thing this guy is saying that is miles from right is that people learned about this from the news media. This story broke on the social networking sites and I picked it up second hand from there. It was only later that I checked the news outlet for more details and didn't find a thing at first. If a 58 year old guy is getting if first from sources other than news outlets it is getting kind of obvious that the news media outlets are really starting to run a few hours late on any breaking news story. As for print media, that's pretty well a historic document by the time you get it.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Did the moon-walk 25 yrs. ago , then progressed to playing 13 year old skin-flutes , then dead.
What a legacy. King nothing. Just dead thank God.

[Jacksonfan]

Michael Jackson's Personal Finance took his life : http://uurl.in/6j04

[snoopsrobinsas]

R.I.P Michael,

Here is a site with breaking news about his death...

www.abcMichaelJacksondeadNews.com

His music will live on.