Article: Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31566668/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_...

So many people wanted to verify the early reports of Jackson's death that the computers running Google's news section interpreted the fusillade of "Michael Jackson" requests as an automated attack from about 5:40 p.m. through 6:15 p.m.

As a defense mechanism, Google's news section responded to requests for information about Michael Jackson with squiggly letters known as a "captcha." Just as online ticket buyers regularly do to complete their purchases, the Michael Jackson searchers had to enter the letters correctly to see Google's new results.

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

Yeah, I heard the news caused several large news sites problems. Didn't know that about Google News though. Wonder how many requests they see before putting up a CAPTCHA.

I'm vaguely acquainted with some of the Sony Web site guys (they use Drupal) and apparently it's all hands on deck there.

a Padded Cell our articles site!

They have: 7 posts

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All the search engines are very much affected by this news..
I should say these sites escaped from crashing Sticking out tongue

They have: 1 posts

Joined: Jun 2009

I agree..I was updating my Blog at the time and everything was extremely slow including google and Twitter!
Daddyoh

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webdesigner's picture

They have: 31 posts

Joined: Jun 2009

Same thing happen to me, while updating my blog in Blogger it was slow indeed than it used to be.

That was simply because too much traffic on mainstream web sites where users wants to find out what really happened to the King of Pop, the late MJ.

NickD's picture

They have: 56 posts

Joined: May 2009

Sickopedia went down aswell, apparently the first thing millions of people did, upon hearing the news... was to look for sick jokes... lol

They have: 16 posts

Joined: Jul 2009

Yeah, that was a huge traffic for the Internet World...

Even in the News, it was soaring in the air. I wonder when is the second day for such a news...

That day, I just decided to stop surfing the net, every site for me is so slow.

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