Jackson Dead Iran Forgotten?

Michael Jackson died in the early hours of this morning from a suspected heart attack, a paramedic team was called to his rented home in Los Angeles and after 45 minutes of trying to resuscitate him they took him to UCLA hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The news was first broken on TMZ.com a celebrity news website that is know for breaking huge celebrity led stories, TMZ is part of Time Warner who also own CNN, AOL and Cartoon Network.

Jackson's death was confirmed by his brother Jermaine in an emotional press conference at the hospital. “We believe he suffered a cardiac arrest at his home, however the cause of his death is unknown until the results of the autopsy are known," he said.

"The personal physician who was with him at the time attempted to resuscitate him.”

Michael Jackson's death comes just two weeks before he was meant to embark on his 50 concert dates at the O2 in London, it is thought that anyone who bought Jackson tickets direct from the O2 or from Ticketmaster.com will be able to get a full refund, those who bought tickets on eBay and other auction sites may not be so lucky.

There is also the question of insurance, the O2 will now remain empty for nine months with many other businesses being impacted from Jackson's death such as the caterers and production staff that were planning on working at the Jackson concerts.

AEG live which organised the events at the O2 placed the liability at about £300 million.

Potentially a lot of money could be lost for AEG Live and the O2.

Internet

Keynote Systems, which tracks web site performance, said that beginning at 4:30 p.m. CDT, about when the first reports of Jackson's death emerged, the average speed for downloading major news sites doubled to almost 9 seconds from less than 4 seconds.

Google's list of top 100 search trends in the hours after the news broke was composed almost exclusively of Jackson-related phrases, ranging from "Michael Jackson died" and "Thriller lyrics" to "Neverland ranch."

According to initial data from Trendrr, a Web service that tracks activity on social media sites, the number of Twitter posts Thursday afternoon containing "Michael Jackson" totaled more than 100,000 per hour.

That put news of Jackson's death at least on par with the Iran protests, as Twitter posts about Iran topped 100,000 per hour on June 16 and eventually climbed to 220,000 per hour.

Iran - Forgotten??

With a lot of the news channels and most news websites putting Jackson's death at the top of their news agenda, one has to think of the plight of the Iranian people, and how their cause is slowly being forgotten or pushed aside.

Lets make sure that we keep #iranelection in the top trending topics on twitter and keep the plight of the Iranian people on top of the news agenda.

At the end of the day, yes Jackson was a ground breaking musician and performer but he was just one man, many more people need our help to get their voices heard.