Twitter struggles with Michael Jackson death

Fwd Tech  Friday 26 June 2009

Michael Jackson's tragic death at the age of 50 sparked a frenzy on Twitter

The news of Michael Jackson’s tragic death from suspected cardiac arrest yesterday sparked a frenzy on Twitter, causing the social blogging site to strain under all the pressure from tributes to the King of Pop.

Following the news of Michael Jackson’s death late last night at the age of 50, Twitter was inundated with tributes with such Tweets as “RIP Michael Jackson” topping the trend topics. The previous topic topping the Twitter trend list has been the Iranian elections for the past two weeks.

The surge of interest in Michael Jackson’s passing had been such that Twitter was straining severely with the amount of tweets about the former singer. At around midnight last night, according to the Twitter tracking tool Twist, about 30 per cent of tweets mentioned Michael Jackson. That figure is expected to have significantly risen today, as the social networking site continues to struggle with the volume of tweets in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death.