Michael Jackson has been with me, musically, my whole life. As a child, I listened to his songs on the radio and watched as he transformed into the “King of Pop”. I remember every media-covered event of his life and career, good or bad. His life was a legacy of firsts and his music will undoubtedly live on forever. To some, Michael Jackson will be the greatest musician they’ve ever heard. Today, Tweetdeck made that familiar little chirping noise to indicate that an update was posted from an account I follow. It was @CNNbrk, announcing that Michael Jackson had just been rushed to the hospital in cardiac arrest. I retweeted the news with a link to the story. Shortly after, people began to speculate and the word had already begun buzzing about the news. Then TMZ announced his death (I’m told they announced it before he actually died). Then other sources slowly began to confirm his death until it was finally confirmed moments ago by an L.A. county coroner. Here’s the timeline of reports from @CNNbrk:

- Pop icon Michael Jackson has been rushed to L.A. hospital in cardiac arrest, according to CNN affiliate KTLA.
- Entertainer Michael Jackson was taken to a hospital CNN affiliate KTLA reported, citing a Los Angeles Fire Department official.
- Entertainer Michael Jackson was taken to UCLA Medical Center, a Los Angeles Fire Department official said.
- Fire Capt. Steve Ruda told CNN a 911 call came in from a west Los Angeles residence at 12:21 p.m.
- Entrances to UCLA emergency room blocked by security guards after Michael Jackson arrived http://bit.ly/16BNY2 #michaeljackson
- Pop icon Michael Jackson is in a coma, sources say. http://bit.ly/16BNY2 #michaeljackson
- “King of Pop” Michael Jackson has died, acording to multiple reports. http://bit.ly/AG0F3 #michael jackson

As all this happened, the internet buzz about the story quickly built up to monumental proportions. The celebrity gossip new site, TMZ reported that social media sites were crawling at a snails pace and that Jackson’s death brought the internet to a grinding halt. A little curious myself, I decided to see how many tweets were floating around Twitter about the horrible news.

I headed over to Twitter’s search page and searched “Michael Jackson” Then I watched as the number of new tweets just grew and grew. After about 20 minutes, there had already been over 50,000 new tweets and as I type this, it just broke 60,000. We are in an information era. These social media sites are quickly becoming the fastest source of breaking news. One thing this tells us for sure is that Michael Jackson’s death has been a shock to the world and the world has been and is still letting their voice be heard.

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