ME and Ophelia

With preliminary estimates putting the global television audience at more than a billion people, it rivals the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president but could fall short of the wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer which attracted 2.5 billion.

Internet traffic was up by as much as 33 per cent as fans around the world posted live messages online as the spectacular event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles unfolded.

The Jackson memorial dominated discussion topics on Twitter and Facebook with tens of thousands of messages being posted each minute.

As the concert progressed, the words "Mandela", "Sharpton", "Jermaine", "Brooke" and "Shields" were in turn the most used terms on Twitter while "Jackson" remained near the top of the list throughout.

The singer also remained near the top of the Twitter trending topics by Wednesday morning.

Almost 10 million people watched the event through a video stream on CNN's website alone, the highest since the Obama inauguration.

Yahoo also reportedly saw five million total streams, making it the most streamed ceremony in its history.

Facebook reported that almost a million status updates containing the word "Jackson" had been posted with at least 6,000 comments per minute linked to the CNN streaming alone. There were thousands more for alternative internet showings on ABC, and E! Online websites.

"The 6,000 is just for CNN Live," said Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook. "It is significantly higher than that when you factor in E! Online, ABC, and MTV which each have their own Facebook Connect implementations.

"The most interesting thing is how many people are writing in internationally. The Jackson memorial seems to have a huge international presence."
Facebook updates from Switzerland, Israel, Britain and Barbados poured in.

Clips of the event, including the singer's daughter Paris's emotional tribute, attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers on the video sharing website YouTube while other Jackson-related films dominated the most watched list.

But the BBC received criticism in some quarters for clearing schedules to carry the event live.