Shortly after Michael Jackson passed away yesterday, the digital ripples could be felt by fans and non-fans alike: Twitter and even Google were temporarily jammed into inaccessibility, and story-breaker TMZ went down as fans around the world tried to figure out what was going on.

The iTunes Music Store, in contrast, went up--as of this morning, of the top 10 most popular albums, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 10 are all Michael Jackson's.

I myself learned of MJ's death through a pre-crashed Tweet that read "wtf! michael jackson died?!"

When prompted, folks of an older generation can recall exactly where they were when they heard the news that JFK had been assassinated.

With this generation, it seems most of us were in front of our computers. Perhaps the question they'll ask in future is "What site were you on when Michael Jackson died?"

King of Pop, R.I.P.