Australians have been feverishly scouring the internet in search of information on the shock death of the king of pop, Michael Jackson.
So intense has the worldwide interest in Jackson been, it's caused a temporary meltdown of the world's most popular search engine Google.
For more than half an hour Google in the US experienced difficulty handling the surge in people using Jackson as a keyword.
News Limited websites have reported a doubling of the number of hits while Facebook and Twitter have been buzzing with messages related to Jackson's passing.
Google rated the search statistics for Jackson as "volcanic".
"While we're not able to provide absolute numbers on people searching, we can say that millions of users around the world have been doing searches related to Michael Jackson," a Google spokeswoman told AAP.
Google searches relating to Jackson's death filled four of the top eight spots on Friday.
More than 20 per cent of Twitter users posted comments using the term "Michael Jackson".
Just as Jackson redefined pop music, his death redefined the way Australia and the world consume major news announcements.
News of his death was broken by celebrity website TMZ.com. The rest of the world's media then followed.
It was a huge scoop for the AOL-owned TMZ, though many did not believe TMZ's report until it was matched by more established news organisations.
"Everything starts with a tip," said Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ.
"We wouldn't have put it up if we weren't positive."
Jackson's death was oddly not the number one read item on two of Fairfax's websites - The Age online and WA Today.
New trains and trams for Melbourne pipped Jackson's death at The Age and dodgy weather on Rottnest Island causing ferry cancellations was more popular in WA.
The hoax death of Jeff Goldblum was surprisingly more popular on Google, coming in fifth, ahead of the death of '70s TV starlet Farrah Fawcett, which rated ninth in terms of Google search words.
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