The internet passed a vital test by coping with tens of
millions of Michael Jackson fans logging on to view the singer's
memorial service online yesterday.
Prominent online news sites
struggled to cope with the demand in the hours after the
singer's death.
The memorial service was billed as the biggest event in web
history, with several TV stations streaming the event live over the
internet.
Video stream providers Ustream and Yahoo said the memorial was
the biggest ever streaming event, reporting 4.6 million and five
million streams respectively, according to the
BBC.
Response times were affected by web traffic that was a third
greater than normal, but there were no major failures, according to
website monitoring firms.
Performance index firm Keynote
System, which reported 50% reductions in response times after
Michael Jackson's death, said that overall the internet performed
well.
Website response times ranged from 6.5 seconds to 18.5 seconds,
compared with 3.5 to 7.3 seconds under normal load.