Posted: 03 Jul 2009 01:17 PM PDT
The web’s response to the passing of music legend Michael Jackson has been staggering. Social media was pounded with tributes last Thursday after the news broke, but next Tuesday could be a huge test for the entire infrastructure of the web, when the memorial for Michael Jackson will take place.The tribute and remembrance of the late King of Pop occurs next Tuesday (July 7th) at 10:00 AM PT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Beyond the 17,500 tickets that will be given away to fans and the millions more that will converge on downtown L.A., the memorial will be live streamed free via the web and media outlets across the world.
This event will almost certainly shatter records for the biggest single live stream ever, and could be one of the biggest worldwide media events in history. Will the web be able to handle it?
The details
- The memorial will occur at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. 17,500 tickets will be randomly drawn in an online lottery available until 6 PM PT July 4th. Only U.S. residents qualifyThe demand was so high for these tickets that the Staples Center website has had trouble staying up, and in fact took down almost every non-essential image and menu to keep the website up. This could be a prelude to the worldwide response we’ll see next Tuesday.
- 8750 names will be selected Sunday, each of which will receive 2 tickets to the memorial
- There will be a simulcast in the Nokia Theater
- There will be a free live stream on the Internet available to all. Details on how the stream will be distributed are currently unavailable
- However, we suspect that thousands of stream will be available from media companies and live stream services around the world
What will Jackson’s memorial mean for the web?
If you remember back in January, there was another historic event that blew us away: the Obama inauguration. Here are some of the staggering numbers from CNN and Facebook.
- 200,000+ status updates through the Facebook integration on CNN.comNow, throw all those numbers out the window, because Michael Jackson’s memorial is almost certain to utterly overshadow Obama. Not even Obama consumed 30% of Twitter and set traffic records at Yahoo.
- 3,000 people commented on the Facebook CNN feed per minute
- CNN served 13.9 million live video streams globally in about 6 hours
- Don’t forget about the millions of other live streams and TV viewers that watched worldwide.
With the world mourning and a specific time and place set for the memorial, we may very well see the entire web converge on this one event. There will likely be thousands of streams worldwide via platforms such as Justin.tv and Ustream (the latter of which has a deal with CBS to stream events like this one). It’s also certain that Twitter, Facebook, and the social web will be booming with commentary on the event.
How many people will watch Jackson’s memorial? Can the web’s biggest players handle the massive traffic that will ensue? Will there be enough bandwidth? Could this event be the single media event in history? The answers to these questions will not only be a testament to Jackson’s impact on the world, but may very well set records that will last in history.
Perhaps most of all, the web will allow people to come together to celebrate Jackson’s life, no matter who they are or where they live.
