After the death of performer Michael Jackson on Thursday, June 25, mobile Web traffic skyrocketed by about 350 percent. And tempers flared between supporters of two SMS search services.

The irony of it all is the fact that online news sites saw a slowdown in Web traffic from the millions of "Michael Jackson" searches last week. However, traffic on AP Mobile made a huge jump in just a matter of hours.

"Of course, we reported Farrah Fawcett's death first, then the hospitalization of Michael Jackson, and then his death," said Jane Seagrave, senior vice president of global product development at Associated Press, New York.

"We had several people traveling by train and plane when this news was breaking and you could literally see people turning to each other and reporting it because they were in places that you can't get the news," Ms. Seagrave said.

"In one instance, we heard that a plane landed and people immediately turned on their phones and the entire plane was filled with conversation before anyone ever disembarked the jet."

As the news traveled, Internet news sites such as ABC, AOL, LATimes.com and CBS.com began to see a tremendous slowdown and eventually became nearly unavailable to users, according to Keynote Systems, a provider of on-demand mobile and Internet tests and measurements.

Keynote Systems also claimed that at 5:30 p.m. EDT on Thursday, the average speed for downloading news sites doubled from less than four seconds to almost nine seconds.

By 9:15 p.m., the Keynote Systems index of the average availability of sites returned to 100 percent, recovering from spending half a day at 86 percent availability.

On the other hand, AP Mobile, which recently introduced an automatic push feature for breaking news, saw a staggering increase in mobile traffic as it gradually reported the news Thursday.

One reason for the increase in mobile page views and decrease in those online may be because the shock factor of the news drove consumers to want immediate information. Mobile provides that immediacy.

AP Mobile claims that it is always common to see a spike in mobile traffic after any breaking news, but that a jump this big is certainly not normal.

Mobile seemed to be the most suitable platform on which to read this breaking news, simply because the information from traditional news outlets spread almost immediately via word of mouth.

Slacker's app response
Online radio application Slacker, one of the most popular on mobile, took the news in stride and determined almost immediately to dedicate a station to the King of Pop.

Within less than an hour of the news of Michael Jackson's death, Slacker Inc. had already made the decision to create a Michael Jackson tribute station, playing all Michael, all the time.

The company created a similar station last year around the 25th anniversary of the Thriller album where it saw just how greatly the late Mr. Jackson influenced artists of today.

"It's clear that Michael Jackson has had an undeniable influence on pop music," said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing at Slacker, San Diego. "Starting with the success of the Thriller album, we've seen where many, if not most, of today's artists grew up listening to him and learning what R&B and pop can be from him.

"We see it from people like Neyo, Beyonce and Justin Timberlake," he said. "They borrowed some of the things that made him popular to begin with, but have built on those things to really change the face of pop music. He did that."

Slacker claims to be promoting this new station via a newsletter to its existing base of listeners.

However, there seems to be very little need for promotion as "Michael Jackson" searches and clicks are already incredibly high.

The Michael Jackson tribute station is already one of Slacker's top stations and has been put in the spotlight section that appears above the top stations inside the application.

"He's influenced many, if not all, the stars we see today," Mr. Sasse said. "So we wanted to revisit that previous station, not only to honor him and his work because his catalog of music is deep and incredibly popular, but also because he really has influenced the stars of the last 20 years that have come out and taken his lead."

"They've taken the things he's done that are innovative and brought them to the forefront," he said. "By creating a station like this on a mobile platform, we can make sure it's immediately available to people."

"Anybody who opens the slacker app on their phone this morning has immediate access to that station. Thanks to mobile, it's something they can find quite easily."

Testy texting
Meanwhile, Mr. Jackson's death sparked an online tiff between supporters of the paid SMS answers service kgb and its free rival, ChaCha.

In a blog post Friday, June 26, New York Times reporter Jenna Wortham said that kgb fielded more than 10,000 questions - at 99 cents apiece - to its mobile search service at kgbkgb, or the short code at 542542.

That was enough for ChaCha's supporters and surrogates. Here's the back-and-forth reader feedback to Ms. Wortham's article as seen on the New York Times' site at http://www.nytimes.com at 6 p.m. EDT on Sunday, June 28:

1. June 26, 2009 4:16 pm Link
Seriously? Americans spent $10,000 on this?
And also?
Seriously? ChaCha probably answered that many questions about Michael Jackson in a single hour.
-- Jason

2. June 26, 2009 5:31 pm Link
Jenna Wortham @ NYTimes:
ChaCha has MUCH more extensive information than KGB.. Just check out http://www.chacha.com to see for yourself? it shows all the real-time questions coming into ChaCha.
AND ChaCha is WAY faster than KGB.
AND most importantly, texting ChaCha at 242-242 is FREE (versus KGB charging a buck).
No brainer. Why isn't the NYTimes covering AWESOME ChaCha instead? ChaCha answers millions of questions rather than KGB's thousands. Your readers deserve to know.
Regards,
*Alan*
-- Alan

3. June 26, 2009 9:17 pm Link
If ChaCha is so hot, why were all the guides on their boards complaining there was no traffic as the news continued to break?
OH that's right, you don't have human guided questions anymore there and you've added LuLu, automated queen of horrible answers!
As the news broke, with kgb_ technology agents were able to begin to coordinate so accurate up to the minute information was being sent out by everyone.
Let's see ChaCha do that. They can't.
-- Just reality

4. June 26, 2009 10:48 pm Link
Let's say that "more than 10,000? means "11,000?, or $10,890 at 99¢ each -- which is about 3.5¢ for every thousand persons living in the U.S.
-- Smadaf

5. June 27, 2009 12:06 pm Link
ChaCha is a great place to get answers. I don't use anything else because the people who answer the questions are fast and friendly.
Plus, its Free. ChaCha On!
-- Mariel Shurer

6. June 27, 2009 5:43 pm Link
Why pay for the same answer? ChaCha is king.
-- Judson

7. June 27, 2009 5:57 pm Link
This is ridiculous. How much did KGB pay to get the NY Times to place this story? Calling this "newsworthy", even for a NYT blog, is a joke.
-- Bill Mills

8. June 27, 2009 9:53 pm Link
10,000 people have never heard of Google and Wikipedia?
-- SL

Mickey Alam Khan also reported for this piece.