Jackson service causes streaming video traffic to spike

Michael Jackson's memorial service yesterday drew the second-highest level of streaming video traffic ever, but it did not come close to the level of activity seen around the all-time leader, President Barack Obama's inauguration in January, according to a NewTeeVee article. Akamai, which handles about 20 percent of all Web traffic, said it served more than 2.1 million live and on-demand video streams of the service, which was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Comparatively, the inauguration drew around 7 million streams at its height, according to Akamai.

Other news sites such as CNN.com and MSNBC.com also reported big traffic increases, as the sites said they served nearly 800,000 and 3 million live streams of the service, respectively. Social online video viewing, pioneered by Facebook and CNN.com's update integration around the inauguration, also spiked during the service, with the two sites reporting 500,000 updates from viewers logged in to the joint presentation.

For more:
- see the NewTeeVee article here 

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