As fans discussed the emotional and musical details of the memorial, the media coverage and the integration between television and the internet was also a major topic. Nearly 15% of all online discussions about Jackson referenced either a broadcast or social network.

CNN which teamed up with Facebook on streaming coverage was named in 5% of all online conversations. Also on the TV network side, BET came in 2nd with 1.9%, ABC with 1.7%, MTV with 1.44%, NBC/MSNBC with 1.43%, Fox with 1.38% and CBS with 1.0%. Among social networks, Twitter was the most discussed social networking site with 2.4%. Facebook was mentioned in 2% of the conversations, followed by Youtube (1.9%) Myspace (0.6%) and Hulu (0.3%) which streamed FOX News coverage.

“While events like the Jackson memorial, or the Obama inauguration are unique, the way consumers are multitasking between media is quickly becoming the norm,” says Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President, Research & Analytics, Nielsen Online. “Even as recently as five years ago, the only choice for community was to gather around the TV screen with co-workers or friends for major events. Now, there are three screens to choose from and, as our research shows, online activity actually reinforces TV viewing. So when outlets like CNN integrate their coverage with Facebook or MSNBC leans heavily on Twitter it demonstrates the public’s growing integrated use of TV, the web, and mobile for getting, and at times reporting, the news.”

Twitter Doesn’t Fail Tweeters

Terms and tags such as #MJ and #Michael Jackson dominated the top trends on Twitter.com yesterday, July 7, 2009. Interestingly, even the misspelling of the King of Pop’s first name as “micheal” also topped trends throughout the day.

Users watch the events of the day unfold on TV and online, often “tweeting” about the coverage offered by various media outlets. Since many were limited to watching coverage online while at work, Twitter featured frequent links and recommendations for live video feeds, most commonly CNN’s live feed with Facebook integration, followed by CBS News/Ustream, MSN, and MSNBC.

During the memorial service, recommendations and links to video stream slowed down, and viewers began to focus more of their “tweets” on the performances at the service, only distracted by news that social media sites Facebook.com and Twitter.com were out of capacity and/or had crashed. However, CNN.com did continue to be the most recommended live feed during programming. Following programming, recommendations shifted to video recordings posted on YouTube.com.

Visit Editor & Publisher for the full list of the top 30 news sites and online newspaper sites.

CNN Digital Network was the top online Current Events & Global News destination when ranked by unique audience on Inauguration Day, with 11.0 million unique visitors. MSNBC Digital Network and Yahoo! News took the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, with 10.0 and 9.1 million unique visitors, respectively.

Most Linked-To-Videos on Inauguration Day

Among the top 15 most linked-to-videos globally on Inauguration Day, 11 of them related to President Obama’s inauguration and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

MSNBC Digital Network topped the list of news sites with nearly 41M unique visitors, a 37% jump from the prior year.

The news/opinion site the Huffington Post placed 18th on the list, but showed the greatest traffic gain. It’s 8.1M unique readers for October 2008 was a 448% improvement over the prior year.

CNN, Yahoo!, AOL, and the New York Times rounded out the top five in overall traffic.

More at Editor & Publisher.

Top 30 News Sites For October 2008

According to Nielsen Online, CNN’s website drew more than 3.3 million unique visitors surfing the Web from home on November 4, 2004.

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s and Yahoo! News’ websites attracted unique audiences of more than 2.7 million and 2.6 million at home, respectively.

Working Americans also flocked to CNN’s, MSNBC’s, and Yahoo! News’ websites for 2004 Election Day updates from the office, according to Nielsen Online.