The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson’s death.Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack.Millions of people who Googled the star’s name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results.It warned users “your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8120324.stmAlso see:Web struggles to cope as Michael Jackson news spreads
The death of Michael Jackson became the biggest story yet to hit the internet, as leading websites struggled to cope with a deluge of traffic from people wanting to find out the latest news.It was a day that showed both the power and frailty of the medium. A celebrity news site, TMZ.com, secured the scoop of a lifetime when it was first to report that Jackson had died — but the site then crashed several times, unable to cope with millions of visitors flooding to it.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6582885.eceNews sites faltered in traffic spikes after Jackson’s death [IDG]
Michael Jackson’s death on Thursday caused a spike in visits to news Web sites that affected the performance and availability of some of the biggest ones, according to Web monitoring company Keynote Systems.Between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time, the availability for the news sites from ABC, CBS, the LA Times and CNN Money dropped to almost 10%, meaning that about nine out of 10 visitors couldn’t get the sites to load.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9134889Debate: Can the Internet handle big breaking news?
It happens time and time again: when news breaks, the Internet slows.It’s quite obvious at this point that the Internet has muscled its way into the lives of anyone who needs information. And Michael Jackson’s death Thursday had as great an impact on the Internet as anything in the history of the medium that didn’t involve the World Trade Center.The statistics are amazing: Akamai said worldwide Internet traffic was 11 percent higher than normal during the peak hours between 3 p.m. PDT and 4 p.m., when news of Jackson’s death was breaking. That traffic forced even Google to its knees for a brief period of time Thursday afternoon.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10273854-93.htmlJackson queries cause Google meltdown [AFP]
A deluge of search queries for Michael Jackson led Google News, the news aggregator of web search engine Google, to initially believe it was under attack, the internet giant said.Google, in a blog post on the company website on Friday, said that “millions and millions” of people around the world begin searching for news about the pop star on Thursday as reports emerged about his hospitalisation and death.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/jackson-queries-cause-google-meltdown-20090627-d06w.html
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/jackson-queries-cause-google-meltdown-20090627-d06w.html