The breaking news of Michael Jackson’s sudden death dominated the web yesterday (and today), causing spikes in traffic and overwhelming social networks such as Twitter and Facebook with bursts of information and updates from millions of users. In comparison, discussions of Jackson far exceeded those of the swine flu scare as well as the inauguration of President Obama.

Nielsen Buzzmetrics analysis shows that more than 16% of tweets over the past 24 hours reference Michael Jackson, and less than 2 percent of Tweets mention Farrah Fawcett and Iran.

A Topper of Charts …

Bruce Springsteen’s appearance at the Super Bowl half-time on Sunday dovetailed with the January 27 release date for his new album “Working On A Dream.” So, how will his Super Bowl performance impact the sales of latest album and older songs?
According to a new study by Nielsen PreView, not surprisingly, album sales and digital tracks do go up following a Super Bowl half-time performance. However, not all artist sales are equal and not all markets respond similarly.
The study, which analyzed music sales of the past four Super Bowl half-time …