Where were you when you heard the news of Michael Jackson's death yesterday? If you were on Twitter -- or headed straight to Twitter after you heard the news -- you're not alone. Shortly after TMZ broke the news of the pop icon's death, and especially after the LA Times confirmed it, Twitter was overwhelmed with thousands upon thousands of messages of grief, remembrance, and condolences.
Jackson's death quickly dominated the "trending topics," displacing tweets mentioning the death of Farrah Fawcett or the Iranian crisis, according to The New York Times.
The surge of tweets slowed down the site considerably and caused it to crash several times. In addition, the "trending topics" feature was temporarily disabled by Twitter, although it's unclear whether this problem was related to the increased traffic. Mashable's Pete Cashmore estimated that 30 percent of all tweets (at around 6 p.m. PST) mentioned Michael Jackson.
Cashmore also highlighted the fact that despite early speculation based on reports by blogs and TMZ, the real influx of messages poured in after the LA Times confirmed the news. So while social media plays an important role in our shared experience of such major events, people still depend on the mainstream news brands for the critical information that they can trust.
