As the world mourned his death, Michael Jackson gave new life to all kinds of media – online, broadcast, print tabloids and broadsheets as the public appeared to lap up the extravagant reflections on the singer’s highs and lows.

T-shirts were sold and TV specials were planned giving a sense of drama reminiscent to the death of Diana Princess of Wales.

In newspapers like the New York Times, Jackson, 50, took over much of the Friday front page. Forget the political uproar in Iran, which has dominated headlines in recent days or the adulturous governor of South Carolina, or even the demise of Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett.

This makes sense since, as Gawker points out, millions of people who normally wouldn’t buy a newspaper will buy one today to get hold of Jackson headlines.

As the news trickled out on Thursday afternoon, fans scrambled to find out the truth.

“Pop King Dies and Leading News Sites Nearly Die Too,” was the subject in an email from Web traffic watcher Keynote Systems that described the strain Jackson put on news sites.

Within hours, Michael Jackson’s music sales shot up and he occupied the top 15 slots on Amazon.com’s best-seller album list including Thriller, his most famous album.

On Friday, blogs were buzzing about the mystery around the controversial megastar’s sudden death and websites displayed photo montages showing it all – the signature moonwalk dance and his infamous dangling of his baby son over a balcony and everything in between. Others debated the merits of learning the news on microblogging site Twitter.

But amid all the excitement, businessinsider.com had to put a damper on things by suggesting that we could bankrupt the government by wasting all our time on the Web rather than engaging in taxable activities.

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