It is June 26, the day after the death of the King of Pop. It is still surreal for me to type these words and comprehend the truth – Michael Jackson is dead.

Amidst all the feelings of shock and nostalgia, it occurred to me how quickly this news spread across the world. With social networking sites playing such a huge role in our daily routines, it is not surprising that sites like Facebook and Twitter were the first to notify many.

As a rather credible news source, CNN has been covering the impact of MJ’s death – “Jackson dies – almost takes Internet with him.” With the news spreading like wildfire across the Web, from searches to social network status updates, this type of event was the closest thing to the Internet “breaking.”

In addition to Google Trends reporting the “volcanic” search volume, Twitter crashed, Google news was temporarily out of service, and AOL Instant Messenger shut down for 40 whole minutes. In short – Online Armaggedon.

 

 For some of us, June 25 will become a significant date: the day the world said goodbye to an American icon. (And to IMs for 40 minutes).

 RIP MJ.