LOS ANGELES , USA - CELEBRITY performances and soaring speeches by African-American leaders were delivered at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday in tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

There, a crowd of 20,000 gathered to bid him farewell, and to watch those like Mariah Carey, Usher, Stevie Wonder and Lionel Richie perform.

They watched as Paris Michael Katherine, Jackson's 11-year-old daughter, paid a moving tribute to her father before collapsing into aunt Janet Jackson's arms, weeping.

Online, global Web traffic was as high as 33 per cent above normal levels during the memorial, as millions of people streamed the event.

Almost 10 million watched the memorial through a video stream on CNN's website alone - the highest number since President Barack Obama's inauguration.

Yahoo! saw a total of five million streams - the most in the website's history.

"This is more than a turning point. It's about giving users more than one view as well as opportunities to not only be a consumer but a producer," Mr Ben Parr, associate editor with Mashable, the world's largest blog focusing on social media, told the BBC.

"I have seen people with their iPhone 3G S recording videos from inside the Staples Center and sharing them with the world," he added.

On Facebook, about one million users posted around 800,000 status updates related to online broadcasts of the memorial.

Jackson is officially Facebook's most popular person, with over seven million fans, according to the BBC.

Facebook's Ms Elizabeth Linder told the BBC: "The site has become a central place to view news about Michael Jackson and share in a tribute to his life and the mourning of his death."

The singer also remained near the top of Twitter trending topics yesterday morning, with a short outage towards 3pm local time in Singapore.

On the social-networking site, stars dominated the top posts on the memorial, noted E!.

Ryan Seacrest tweeted: "This makes the world feel so small... everyone connected right now."

--AGENCIES

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