The death of terrorist Osama Bin Laden, announced by President Barack Obama from the White House at roughly 11 p.m. on Sunday evening, galvanized the Internet as few stories have. In short order, Bin Laden’s demise appeared to produce as many (if not more) tweets, check-ins, and Facebook updates than such digitally-parsed moments as the Mideast revolutions, worldwide natural disasters, entertainment telecasts, and sporting events.
On Twitter, rumors of Bin Laden’s death preceded the mainstream media’s release of that information, which occurred around 10:45 p.m. eastern time, shortly before President Obama’s East Wing address. Users on Foursquare began to check in to a “post-Osama world” almost immediately. Images of Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabbad appeared via Google Maps within minutes of the alert that Bin Laden had been killed in a daring raid led by Navy SEALs.
“The demise of the world’s most sought-after super-villain resulted in an explosion of online activity,” Andrew Couts, of the site DigitalTrends, reported. ”While we do not have exact numbers yet, we experienced extremely long load times on a number of major news websites, including NYTimes.com, and MSNBC.com. CNN’s mobile website crashed entirely after the news erupted through the public consciousness.”
