Internet Buckles Under News of Jackson's Death

June 26, 2009— -- Nakia Reynoso will never forget the moment he saw Michael Jackson do the moonwalk for the first time. It convinced Reynoso that he, too, was destined for the stage.

So as reports filtered in Thursday evening about Jackson's death, the 34-year-old Austin-based musician posted to Twitter, "RIP The Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson -- I still remember the day I bought my red leather zipper coat, sequin socks and glove."

Reynoso was just one of millions of fans who descended on the Internet last night to celebrate, mourn and remember the passing of one of the planet's greatest musical talents.

But as the world flocked to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Google to search for news about Jackson and exchange memories, the Internet nearly buckled under the strain of all the traffic, according to industry officials.

During late Thursday afternoon Pacific Time, major news sites, including those for the Los Angeles Times, CBS, ABC and AOL, slowed considerably, according to San Mateo, Calif.-based Keynote Systems Inc., which monitors the performance of Internet and mobile networks.

"Beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET, the average speed for downloading news sites doubled from less than four seconds to almost nine seconds. During the same period, the average availability of sites on the index dropped from almost 100 percent to 86 percent. The index returned to normal by 9:15 p.m. ET," said Shawn White, Keynote's director of external operations.

Even the ever-reliable Google was affected by the millions of searches related to the king of pop.

"Between approximately 2:40 p.m. Pacific and 3:15 p.m. Pacific yesterday, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results specifically for queries related to Michael Jackson," Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman, told ABCNews.com.

Of the top 100 Google searches Thursday, more than 50 were related to Michael Jackson, the company said, adding that as people searched for lyrics to favorite songs, "Thriller," "Man in the Mirror," and "Billie Jean" were three most popular.

The social media blog Mashable reported that according to the Twitter tracking tool Twist, at least 30 percent of Tweets Thursday evening were related to Michael Jackson's death.