Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

Tumblr users react in real time to the events of Michael Jackson’s memorial service streaming live on the internet.

That’s right, yet another blogger pontificating on Michael Jackson’s untimely death. But give me just a second here! For this post is more about the almighty internet rather than the King of Pop. Which is a great segue into what I’m getting at. The last time a celebrity of this magnitude was buried with this much media attention was the King of Rock N’ Roll, Elvis Presley, and I just want to take a moment to note how much things have changed since then.

The internet is growing up. It almost broke under the weight of Michael Jackson’s death on June 25th, but I think it’s safe to say that the online world has rightfully seated itself as the King of Media, and it hasn’t even Moonwalked yet. TV or print just can’t offer viewers the immersive and collaborative experience that the internet can. And Newspapers? Well, they’re still working on printing an account of what happened today at Michael Jackson’s memorial as I write this.

Does anyone even watch TV anymore? CNN and the other major networks, from FOX, to Canada’s own CBC, streamed live video of the event, and seeing as since it all went down while most North American’s were at work, it’s pretty safe to say most of us were watching it online. CNN worked in conjunction with Facebook to record the pulse of its members on the event, in realtime, something that was first implemented during the Obama election (another huge transformative media event). Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, and a million bloggers worked overtime to record every moment for future consumption.

I’ve written about this before because I’m fascinated by real time events and how they’re communicated and disseminated through the pipes of the internet. And MJ’s Memorial was just such an occasion to marvel at how this happens. Rather than invite friends over to my home so we could watch and discuss MJ’s memorial together – something we would have surely done in 1977 – I gathered up some friends via email, who were distributed throughout the world at their machines watching the streaming video being offered up by the networks. Some of us were at work, another was taking a break from mowing his vacation home’s lawn in upstate NY, and a few were still in bed. From New York, London, Berlin, Toronto, and here in Vancouver, we used Cover It Live to get together and collaboratively liveblog Michael’s memorial service at the Staples Center in realtime.

Cover It Live allows its users to interactively cover an event. It can be anything, sporting event, political rally, your child’s birth, and uhm, yes, even a funeral. I won’t go into too much detail about Cover It Live, except to say that it’s horribly designed, but works very well. If you’re interested in more, you can watch a demo here where all of its features are covered.

So there we were, at our computers on the internet, watching Michael Jackson’s memorial service. Wondering out loud in realtime to an audience of about 50 that we managed to gather (we’re a very funny crew if you must know). We mused in the Cover It Live window that one of us embedded on their blogs if MJ was actually in that coffin in the middle of the stage, on how much advertising Staples was getting out of all the hoopla, and freaked out a bit trying to figure out what in the world Magic Johnson was going on about with KFC, not to mention Stevie Wonders hair. Quite a bit different than sitting around in my living room squinting at my 13″ CITIZEN TV, which is about to be sold at a garage sale since I don’t use it anymore. One King dies, and another is born. Cue emotional music.

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