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.
