Alex and I are both big MJ fans, and were naturally upset by his passing last week. However, Alex and I are also both fans of Google, so it was interesting – if still slightly upsetting – to see what effect Michael’s death had online (besides the setting up of billions of decentralised “RIP Michael Jackson” Facebook groups, of course).

Taking a look at the last 30 days at Google Trends, well, some pretty clear results here:

Such was the increase in search volume (from index 0 to 10 in fewer than 48 hours!), that Google actually interpreted the influx of Jacko-related searches as a malware attack or similar. In fact, by the time I had managed to get to a computer (the news was broken to me midway through a wedding reception – poor form by the DJ, if you ask me), Googling “Michael Jackson” popped up an error message, telling me that my search looked like ‘an automated request from a computer virus or spyware application’. Well excuse me, Google, for wanting more information!

This graph from news.cnet.com shows the surge in Jackson queries in an hourly format:

Interestingly, Google received a massive increase in searches coming from mobile devices – not surprising since most Americans were at work at the time the news was announced – and they also set a record for visits in a single 24-hour period: over 16.4 million unique visitors. And with Michael’s penchant for breaking records, Google’s front page story covering his death was the most popular story to date.

Even at the time of writing – about a week after his passing – 9 of the top 10 bestselling albums in Amazon.co.uk are by Michael Jackson (10 out of 10 on Amazon.com)… his death has put his body of work out there to a new audience in ways I didn’t really expect, and I can only see this as a good thing.

Apologies to anybody reading this who is still suffering from Michael Jackson over-saturation – we just happened to think this was worth blogging. But what celebrity death won’t the media turn into a feeding frenzy these days? RIP Michael!