The number of Internet searches, blog posts and amateur videos about Jackson — from heartfelt tributes to expressions of disbelief — have skyrocketed since the pop icon was found in cardiac arrest inside his Los Angeles home on Thursday.

The largest wave of traffic crested about 6 p.m. ET, soon after the celebrity-gossip site TMZ.com reported that Jackson was dead. First came the Google searches, and a spike of "millions and millions" of users querying the search words "Michael Jackson died," says Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker.

Then, as word spread around the globe, search terms ran the gamut: Phrases including "Michael Jackson cardiac arrest," and "Michael Jackson death hoax" accounted for more than half of Google's top 100 most-searched phrases on Thursday, a trend the company said was unusual.

But Google was not alone. Facebook, YouTube and other social media sites saw a remarkable increase in traffic and new content in the hours after Jackson's death was confirmed. And while news organizations say they saw bumps in website traffic since Thursday, the popularity of social media sites, observers say, is part of a growing trend — people increasingly get their news and analysis online from friends.

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