News of Michael Jackson’s Death Cripples Web: MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer June 29, 2009

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Michael Jackson’s death increased Internet usage by more than 4.2 million worldwide users per minute, in comparison to the normal 2 million visitors a minute. Web usage was so massive that AOL’s AIM messaging service crashed for 40 minutes, the LA Times went down, and TMZ’s traffic was more than 33% higher than its previous record high. The strain put on servers is important to note, as how much can the Internet infrastructure really take.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took in $201.2 million to top the domestic box office. The summer blockbuster took in an additional $186 million internationally, for a global earning of $387.3 million. In its course, Michael Bay’s Transformers sequel demolished the record for a Wednesday opening, previously held by Spider-Man 2 with $152.4 million.

Microsoft has hired Morgan Staney to explore the sale of Razorfish. Razorfish, the digital ad agency Microsoft acquired when it purchased aQuantive, is currently valued between $600-700 million. Razorfish, which boasted sales of roughly $400 million last year, is the digital agency for companies like Nike, Kraft and Audi, and may come in conflict with Microsoft’s own agency Microsoft Advertising.

Informercial legend Billy Mays died yesterday at home in Florida. News of Mays death, famous for the OxiClean commercial, as well as Discovery Channel’s Pitchmen, spread on Twitter. His son Billy Mays III tweeted at “My dad didn’t wake up this morning.. I’m sure you’ll all hear about it. It hasn’t yet hit me but it’s about to” on Sunday morning.