In an earlier post I talked about the effect Michael Jackson's deathwas having on various big players on the internet. But one of the biggest players is seeing some of the biggest impact.
Yahoo just informed me that Yahoo News set a record in unique visitors with 16.4 million unique visitors in a day. The previous record was on Election Day with 15.1 million visitors. Yahoo News had 4 million visitors come to the site between 3-4pm yesterday, in the wake of the news breaking, setting an hourly record. And Yahoo News set a record 175 million page views yesterday, the company's 4th highest day after the Barack Obama Inauguration and Hurricane Ike.
For Yahoo's front page, an equally staggering story: The story "Michael Jackson rushed to hospital" generated 800,000 clicks in a 10 minute period beginning at 3:30pPDT. And Michael Jackson's death generated 560,000 clicks in a 10 minute period beginning at 4pPDT.
Over at Yahoo Music, the blog post on Michael Jackson has already generated more than more than 21,000 comments.
All of this speaks directly to what CEO Carol Bartz had to say at the company's annual shareholders meeting Thursday. Yahoo is more than merely a search destination, it's a community builder. And events like this spotlight the power of Yahoo online. And if Bartz can come up with a truly effective way to monetize all this traffic a lot better than Yahoo's done up until now, this company could be off to the races.
This kind of traffic is truly stunning.
Update: Yahoo now confirms that Michael Jackson's death is the highest clicking story in the history of the Yahoo homepage.
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