It felt like today was a holiday with the inactivity on sites during MJ's memorial.

CNN Live Stream of Michael Jackson Memorial: 9.7 Million Views

 

We knew that Michael Jackson’s memorial service would be one of the biggest events in Internet history, and so far, the numbers are confirming it. We’ve learned that CNN.com’s live stream of the event drew at least 9.7 million views (through 5pm ET), with a maximum of 781,000 concurrent viewers. While that falls short of the 27 million total and 1.3 million concurrent live streams that President Obama’s inauguration saw on CNN.com,

 

it would appear that users were more engaged in the company’s Facebook Connect integration for Jackson, with upwards of 6,000 status updates being posted per minute earlier today. CNN also reports that their website has received 11.8 million unique visitors and 81 million page views so far today.

....

 

 

...

Sure, the Department of Defense designed it to be military-grade rugged, but no one really knew if the internet could handle a memorial service webcast of a pop megastar. Oh, it was brutal. From a network engineering perspective. Michael Jackson's service drew, at its peak, about 2.8 million video and audio streams through the network of content middleman Akamai, versus around 350,000 on a normal day. It was almost entirely Americans

...

http://gawker.com/5309513/internet-somehow-survives-michael-jackson-funeral

Whoa. 31 million viewers...

...

The event, which commanded virtually unprecedented worldwide interest, was watched in the U.S. by an average aud of 30.92 million viewers. This Nielsen estimate reflects the 19 national broadcast and television networks showing the memorial, which aired from roughly 1-4 p.m. ET.

 

By comparison, Princess Diana’s funeral, shown early on a Saturday in 1997 averaged 33.3 million viewers in the U.S., and the burial of President Reagan on a Friday night in 2004 averaged 35.1 million.

...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005781.html?categoryid=3667&cs=1&nid=2562