Michael Jackson dies
Michael Jackson's death on June 25, 2009 overloaded websites and social media outlets. Twitter crashed, Google news search results for Michael Jackson were reportedly slower, and the entertainment site that broke the news, TMZ, went down.
Still, media outlets treated the spread of information via social media as news. The New York Times reported that following TMZ's post about the pop idol's heart attack, "thousands of messages expressing disbelief, grief and remembrances flooded the Twitter microblogging service."
AOL issued a statement saying that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history." Possibly, although the day was a much more important moment in the history of pop music.
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Last updated May 04 2011: 12:53 PM ET
