It's been termed "the biggest story to break online" and now millions of fans are turning to the Internet to remember Michael Jackson - The King of Pop.
Jackson-related content on video sharing websites such as YouTube, DailyMotion and MySpace are being flooded with viewers, pushing the late singer's videos to the top of the Viral Video Chart.
Jackson's music videos and related clips dominate 12 spots out of the top 20 on the popular online chart complied by Unruly Media almost a week after his death, while nearly 30 videos out of the top 50 are of the singer.
Unruly Media director and co-founder Sarah Wood says the spike in traffic on the site has been unprecedented.
"Within hours of rumours circulating of his death, we started seeing Michael Jackson videos moving up the chart," she says.
"We've never seen anything like this. It is just unprecedented. For videos of one entertainer to fill the chart in this way - and it's not just Michael Jackson's videos that we're seeing now, it's tributes to him."
The dancing Filipino prisoners with their infamous version of "Thriller" has come back into the charts at number four along with their tribute after Jackson's death debuting at number 13.
The number of views of Jackson videos on the chart is astounding. "Thriller" takes the top spot with close to 75 million views, followed by "Smooth Criminal" with over 35 million, and the list goes on and on.
However, Wood says the chart is not complied by the number of views a video has. Instead it's based on the number of online posts.
"It charts the buzz and the chatter around a piece of content rather than how many times it's been watched," she says.
"You can't create a viral video, because no video is one until it has been shared. You can't buy conversation, you can't buy genuine viewer interest and engagement - that's something that is much more authentic and natural."
Unruly Media scours the blogosphere and searches for links and embeds to particular video URLs. Wood says they track sites such as Dailymotion, MySpace, YouTube, Break, and others.
A lot of Jackson's videos had a large number of views before his death -- in the range of 10 to 30 million -- but Wood says there's an interesting trend in the massive jump in numbers in the last couple of days.
"We watch this space very carefully to see which videos people are choosing to share, and you see the canon of Michael Jackson being formed here," she says.
"You see the videos that are going to be his legacy and what people are choosing to share and watch."
"We're not surprised to see 'Thriller' at the top because [it was a] seminal piece of video content when it was released - it was groundbreaking then, so it's interesting to see he's breaking new ground now."
Not only are people watching his videos in the millions, they're downloading them as well. Jackson's albums take the top spot in 20 out of 22 countries on iTunes.
Wood says Jackson's content will decrease out of the Viral Video Chart, but people will continue to share their grief of the superstar's loss online for some time.
"In the first couple of days, we were just seeing the videos and it was almost like a Michael Jackson fact catalogue and the way they were communicating their grief by embedding a video or linking to one.
"What's happened over the last couple of days is we're seeing different content coming in like the new tribute from the Filipino prison that was performed on the weekend."
