Michael Jackson’s
Farewell Trends
Research Report
By Trendsspotting.com

Akamai: 20% surge in traffic to leading
online news sites
Source : Akamai

Google search spiked for Michael Jackson
Source : Google Blog

And this is what Google thought..
Source : Google Blog

Twitter buzz peaked up to 5000
tweets per minute
Source : Twist

MJ dominates US TV news
Source : Snap Stream

Facebook’s fan page crossed over
6 Million new fans
Source : Inside Facebook

Last.fm: Tracks played per hour after
announcement of his death
Source : Last.fm

Bloggers join the mourn
Source : BlogPulse

The death of Jackson resulted in a global
media event of the first order
Mainstream Global Media Internet, Blogs & Social Media
Rank Story Year Rank Story Year
1 Obama 2008 1 Obama 2008
Hurricane
2 2005 2 Michael Jackson 2009
Katrina
Financial
3 2008 3 Iraq War 2003
Tsunami
4 Iraq War 2003 4 Beijing Olympics 2008
9/11 Terrorist
5 2001 5 Financial Tsunami 2008
Attacks
6 Beijing Olympics 2008 6 Hurricane Katrina 2005
7 Pope John Paul II 2005 7 Pope Joh Paul II 2005
8 S.Asian Tsunami 2005 8 9/11 Terrorist Attacks 2001
9 Michael Jackson 2009 9 S.Asian Tsunami 2005
Source : The Global Language Monitor

Out of stock
Around the time of Jackson’s death, only one of his albums
ranked in the top 100 on iTunes in the US.
By Friday morning, 8 of the top 10 albums were
Jackson’s.
5 of Jackson’s singles made it to iTunes’ list of most-
purchased tracks.
As Amazon sold out all Jackson CDs - customers were
buying Jackson’s music in digital formats!
Jackson related videos on Amazon (mostly DVDs) are
currently out of stock.

Trendsspotting Insights
Jackson’s shocking death influenced all internet users
behaviours, and serves as a good example for what we
do once confronted with breaking news:
We Search & seek for more
information to better understand the event
We join groups, follow,
become fans to take part in the network created
around the event
We express our thoughts
(@ blogs, twits) among our own network of
readers, followers, friends
We did that all, like never before,
while dealing with Michael Jackson’s death event.

KING
of
POP
R.I.P.

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