As he did in life, Michael Jackson continues to break records in his death...
The death of superstar Micheal Jackson is turning out to be one of the biggest phenomenons that is illustrating the power of online and mobile communication throughout the world and is really fascinating from an Internet marketing perspective.
On a personal note...
Let me say that I am truly saddened by this news. As my regular readers know, I came to this country from the former USSR in 1975 as a young child and Off The Wall was the first album I ever owned, yes in full on vinyl.
His music was my first introduction to American pop and dance culture and coming from the USSR with both of my parents being classical concert pianists this was certainly a change of pace.
That album and the many great songs that came after hold a lot of great memories for me and brought me lots of joy throughout the years.
It is truly amazing the kind of impact he had on people all over the world. I suspect that we will learn that his early death could have been avoided, as with the many celebrities who came before him and I really hope that he can find some peace in death that he could not find in life.
The unprecedented impact of Michael Jackson's death on the Internet:
The news of Michael Jackson's death had an incredible impact on the Internet with record breaking traffic and search volumes that actually shut down Google for about 26 minutes on Thursday afternoon because they thought they were being attacked.
Google Trends labeled Thursday’s searches for “michael jackson died” as “volcanic.”
Thursday was also a record-breaking day for Yahoo when their story, “Michael Jackson rushed to hospital,” received 800,000 clicks in 10 minutes, which made it its highest-clicked story ever.
Yahoo revealed that Yahoo News set an all-time record with 16.4 million visitors, beating the old record of 15.1 million set last election day. The four million visitors between 3-4 pm also set an hourly record.
Twitter reported 5,000 Jackson-related tweets per minute on Thursday afternoon.
Facebook reported status updates in triple numbers on Thursday afternoon.
AOL, whose AIM messaging service was knocked offline for 40 minutes Thursday, stated "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We’ve never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth.”
The massive search volumes also affected, Bing, as well as mobile communications which saw an unprecedented amount of text and communications volumes as well.
From an Internet marketing prespective this is quite fascinating and shows the power and speed of information distribution that is the Internet.
I was watching to see who had the story posted first, as thousands of bloggers, both in news and celebrity fields took to their keyboards to spread the news.
TMZ.com broke the story first, with CNN and local news channels following closely behind, but apparently Wikipedia still won out over everyone, including Twitter and poor Google (:-)) that struggled to revive after the massive search volumes.
Here is an interesting post by SEO Moz, that lists the exact time line of the developing news online:
A Bad Day for Search Engines: How News of Michael Jackson's Death Traveled Across the Web
And Google's official blog posted an explanation of their downtime and a search volume graph that really illustrates the spike in searches best at: Outpouring of Searches for the Late Micheal Jackson
On a lighter note...
Don't we all wish to have at least 5% of that kind of traffic???? Incredible really.
Follow Me on Twitter @: colleenlane
(1 comments)
I spending some time visiting blogs I’m subscribed too and I’m amazed at the number of folks that have dedicated a blog entry to MJ’s death. Too bad he died too young. His upcoming tour would have been a hit.
Colleen@Kennewick Wa Real Estates last blog post..Kennewick WA Homes for Sale
@Colleen@Kennewick
You are right, there is no doubt that he really touched millions of lives
Yes part of that traffic would be amazing but then again traffic just for the sake of it will not make you money.
It is definitely sad that this icon has died but as you say it didn’t seem like he had peace in life so we can only hope that he has it now.
Mikael @ Retire Earlys last blog post..What You Don’t Know About Money Will Hurt You
@Mikael
“Yes part of that traffic would be amazing but then again traffic just for the sake of it will not make you money.”, LOL, spoken like a true marketer!
@JR, Can’t help it. Its in my blood
Mikael @ Retire Earlys last blog post..What You Don’t Know About Money Will Hurt You
@Mikael
I feel that!
@JR, But now that I think about it a post titled:
“How You Can Make More Money Online By Piggy Banking On Jackson’s Death”
could probably bring in a ton of targeted traffic and coming up with a Top 3 list with ideas shouldn’t be that hard.
Anyone up for the challenge?
Mikael @ Retire Earlys last blog post..What You Don’t Know About Money Will Hurt You
@Mikael
For sure it would, I don’t have the heart for it, never was a real salesman at heart, that’s why I love IM, you can make money being passive.
I guarantee you if you Google that right now there is all ready a variation of such or will be by the week’s end.
Follow the trend might brings you some traffic, but it’s not necessary that it will bring you earning. Anyway, the dead of MJ was a sad, just hope he has peace in heaven now…
Regards,
Lee
As a mobile disc jockey entertainer, it had a unique impact on my business. Only the passing of Elvis was more significant, from a DJ perspective.
@Matt
Oh sure, I imagine it will for some time to come.
Thanks for the post and the link to seomoz. This kind of traffic is absolutely amazing and does show the power of the web. I too have enjoyed MJs music over the years and hope he RIP.
From an internet marketing perspective what do you think the most value to a marketer is during a news story like this? Is it the potential for links or are there monetization models that would work. I am really thinking of any big news item not just a death and also items about lesser stars that won’t garner this kind of traffic but would still be fairly big.
I use the example of Michael’s death only as something we can learn from and I am not saying we should market based on another person’s pain.
It is just interesting to think about this kind of interest when our job is to get traffic and monetize it.
Agrande with network marketing leadss last blog post..MLM Network Marketing Leads Tips
@Agrande,
Well it is all ready reported that sales of any type of Jackson products, such as CD’s and DVD’s are skyrocketing, and iTunes reported a huge amount of sales of his music over the weekend, so that is always an option for MMO.
Also, I think that any type of website relating to Jackson would get a good amount of traffic, that is if it is not too competitive in kw and can get some rank rather soon.
Also, as Mikael @ Retire Early commented below, “How You Can Make More Money Online By Piggy Banking On Jackson’s Death”, while not something everyone can deal with, is certainly something that has lots of traffic potential and I am sure something that will become an angle.
Also, if you all ready have an even remotely related site, I think adding MJ products is a good idea. I have a site that is related to music and so I have put up some MJ stuff on it.
I think it’s especially interesting that Michael Jackson’s death was listed on Google, but not for the singer. Several sources have now shown how Google was showing results for a writer’s death that shared teh same name as the pop icon.
-@jlbraaten
@jlbraaten,
Yeah it looks like Google may have messed this one up a little all around, WOW, shocking, could it be that the big G is not perfect???
@JR, I know right? Personally I think it’s even smart of Google to allow these mishaps to happen. I mean really, with all the scrutiny they’re getting from an anti-trust perspective, it’s definitely nice for them to show that they aren’t the big monopoly that people think they are.
Internet Marketing Minnesotas last blog post..Choosing Content for a Usable Website
It is look like people are making money from MJ death. I agree that we should not use other people pain to make money but it is simply unstopable.
Alan Driscos last blog post..Learn how to make money online with Facebook
@Alan Drisco,
Of course it will happen. I think there are tasteful ways to do it, Amazon has a memorial set up on the front page that leads people to leave memories and comments and has related products peppered all around, that is okay, I bought a DVD of a concert.
At least Amazon’s sellers did not ridiculously hike up the prices, some sellers on eBay have gone nuts selling DVD’s at over $600!
@JR, and the fact is that people thrive on other people’s misery. Without it nobody would buy newspapers, weekly magazines and watch the news on TV. It would tend to say that it is in our nature.
I definitely agree that it shouldn’t be like this, but that’s a completely different story.
Mikael @ Retire Richs last blog post..Remove Unwanted Analytics Account Profiles You Are Not Managing
@Mikael
You are totally right of course, and it’s definitely one of the dark sides of human nature.
I like the timeline on SEOMoz
I think this event has set a precedent now for the breaking of big news stories. It seems people are now going straight to the web rather than traditional news outlets for news on major events.
Motorbike Insurance Articless last blog post..National Motorcycle Week 2009, 12th-18th July
@Motorbike Insurance Articles,
I liked the timeline too.
Oh yeah for sure, and don’t forget the Blackberries and iPhones that stream Internet and live news feeds.
@Motorbike
Not too mention that with all those gadgets few people even stay at home anymore to watch TV, they are always on the run and watch video on their phones, as well as everything else.
Yeah that’s true even Micheal’s death.
he is still dominating. He’s music makes him alive. Even there are controversies that MJ had encountered the fans are still there supporting the pop icon.
@Jacky,
For sure, people really loved him, there was guy on Amazon who made a negative comment about him in their memorial section and like 600 people bashed him.
@PRINCE2 training,
“It’s like millions of surfers on the sea waiting for the next big wave to come.” I love that, so true!
Wow I had not heard that Google shut down for a bit! There is certainly a lot of buzz about MJ right now and I can only imagine that this will go on for a long time! Neat article and glad I found your blog…will be following!
Jenns last blog post..Free Internet Marketing Training Coming to a City Near You!
@Jenn,
Thanks and welcome! Yes the mighty Google fell for over 20 minutes!
Yes, the search statistics are amazing. I doubt very much that there would be that kind of traffic if a world leader had died (unless it was Obama, who’s a celebrity as well as a politician!).
I saw the power of celebrity on the web when Heath Ledger died. When reports that he’d died were just coming out, I posted about it straight away. I got an immediate surge of traffic, with several hundred hits very soon after posting it. I’m no big fish, so you can imagine what the total search volume must have been!
Michael Jackson was a far bigger celebrity than Ledger. No wonder the search volumes have been so staggering.
Matt@Aussie humor and opinions last blog post..Michael Jackson gone but not forgotten
Great Post man , this incident shows that how Google is so poor in indexing real time news as compared to yahoo
@Gagan
So true, when push came to shove, Google did not keep up and showed totally irrelevant results, I heard many reporting that.
@aktenium,
Well that is the world of sales and marketing, many will be taking advantage of his death and believe me they will make tons of cash, his CD’s and DVD’s are all ready on back order at Amazon due to them selling out, and not just at Amazon
Follow Me on Twitter @: ExtremeEzine
(7 comments)
I was never a big Michael Jackson fan and I had no idea so many people felt so strong for him. To watch the internet (and media) focus on one main topic for close to two weeks was amazing.
@Brian D. Hawkins,
I agree it really is, and makes the whole world seem like such a small place.
This only shows how much people truly loved Michael Jackson. He passed all accomplishments and even furthered them along the way. I’m not surprised of these numbers at all from Yahoo!
Regards,
Jay
Love Poems & Love Quotess last blog post..Either Make Money Or Make A Million Dollars For Her
@Ferienwohnung Toskana, I had also hard from media that he is preparing for his comeback. You are right he will remain king for POP and his music will live with us.
It was interesting how he was in debt and having to do a tour to gain money to pay it back but now with his death the debt issue isn’t one anymore. Oh and now they don’t know where his body is! how ridiculous
I’ve learned about this also through the Internet. It’s surprising that so many people took an interest in such a mournful news.
Wow amazing. I never know that the death of Michael Jackson will push Google to downtime. For Myself, I know the death of Michael Jackson is from TV, not Internet.
Ruri@Free article submissions last blog post..Chinese Letter Tattoos Have A Mythical Asian History
Pay it back but now with his death the debt issue isn’t one anymore. Oh and now they don’t know where his body is! how ridiculous
Interesting informative post. It’s not about Jacko that is curious but the people behaviour. Everyone who hated him in past years now are talking how great he was… I know that we live in flawed world, but sometimes I just can’t cope with people beeing so false and untruth.