It is possible that it was just an anomaly with my Blackberry since I wasn’t on a real computer, but it appeared many of the major sites were overloaded for 30 minutes or more after the news of Michael Jackson’s death broke.

Between approximately 2:40 p.m. PDT and 3:15 p.m. PDT today, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson,” a Google spokesman told CNET, which also reported that Google News users complained that the service was inaccessible for a time. At its peak, Google Trends rated the Jackson story as “volcanic.”  (Source: CNN)

So a few of us were discussing if there were any other celebrities (not political figures), who might bring down the Internet if they died unexpectedly.

While there wasn’t an official consensus and we hope these individuals have a long fruitful life,  we came up with the following list of probable celebrities who would have such impact:

1. Oprah
2. Tiger Woods
3. David Beckham
4. Madonna
5. Muhammad Ali
6. Angelina Jolie
7. Kobe Bryant
8. Britney Spears
9. Michael Jordan
10. Brad Pitt