-- Will Michael Jackson's memorial be a more widely watched event than President Barack Obama's inauguration? Comparisons with Obama's January swearing-in _ a much-watched event experienced by many on their computers at work _ were rife Tuesday, as the King of Pop's memorial service became a media-saturated event. Aside from the wall-to-wall coverage planned by the television networks and cable news channels, the memorial service _ set for 1 p.m. EDT at the Staples Center in Los Angeles _ was to be streamed online by many news outlets and Web sites, including Hulu.com, MySpace.com and The New York Times' Web site. Several outlets rolled out interactive features previously used for Obama's inauguration. CNN.com planned to integrate its live video with chatter from Facebook. Alan Wurtzel, chief of research at NBC Universal, called it "the first multiplatform-significant culture event." "This is definitely going to be the first worldwide event where there is going to be a significant amount of multiplatform viewing," said Wurtzel. "But I don't have a clue how many people are going to watch it." Not all of the coverage was to be virtual. Cinedigm Digital Cinema Network said it would carry the service on its live digital network in more than 80 movie theaters nationwide. Crowds were expected to gather in Jackson's Gary, Ind., hometown and outside Harlem's Apollo Theater in New York, where the Jackson 5 won "Amateur Night" in 1967. Viewings were planned throughout the country in local locations such as the main branch of the Baltimore library and Miami-Dade College in Miami. A total of 8,750 people out of 1.6 million registrants were chosen to receive two tickets each to the memorial service in downtown Los Angeles. The family announced that participants would include Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Usher, Lionel Richie, Kobe Bryant and Jennifer Hudson. Many more luminaries were expected to attend. The 50-year-old singer's June 25 death brought an outpouring of grief and remembrance from fans across the globe. The reaction was especially considerable online, where many people first read the news. The avalanche of traffic temporarily brought Twitter, Wikipedia and AOL's instant messaging service to a crawl. Jackson generated the most tweets per second since Obama was elected president in November. Akamai's Net Usage Index, which monitors global news consumption online, found that Web traffic to news sites increased by about 50 percent. The computers running Google's news section even briefly interpreted the fusillade of "Michael Jackson" requests as an automated attack. Traffic flowed to YouTube, where many celebrated Jackson by watching his iconic music videos. Last week, Internet video research firm Visible Measures said Jackson's 14-minute, 1983 video "Thriller" had been watched more than 8.5 million times online since his death. At the same time, others have grown tired of the continual coverage of Jackson's death, believing it has overshadowed more important news and that Jackson _ who was tried and acquitted of sexually abusing a child in 2005 _ doesn't deserve such attention. A Pew Research Center poll published last week found that 64 percent of those surveyed said Jackson's death has received too much coverage. ___ AP Television Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
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