Watching the Michael Jackson Funeral Live

10:30 a.m.: The Michael Jackson funeral has begun. Watching CNN.com Live feed with Facebook integration. Facebook reports 6,000 status updates/minute, on a more global scale than what they saw with live Obama Inauguration coverage. CNN doesn’t have audio from the Staples Center, switching to MSNBC.

10:35: MSNBC has Twitter integration — automatically tags posts “#MJ #MSNBC.” Updates are coming in too fast to read. Chris reports seeing a pre-roll on MSNBC as well as Hulu.

10:39: Checked back with CNN, it’s way behind the other feeds. Also the “friends” filter isn’t that effective for me since many of mine are not watching. There should be some sort of semantic filter to bring in friend updates that are actually relevant.

10:43: Here’s a screenshot of my overloaded desktop where you can get an idea of how the different feeds look:

10:45: Man, CNN is not handling all the traffic it’s getting. Keeps stopping up.

10:53: Fox News player looks more pixelated out than others, though seems like it’s because they’re using a larger player size. Hulu’s version of the same feed looks better.

10:57: Finally got Ustream’s version of CBS News’ feed to load after it had timed out a bunch of times. Now it’s way behind — still on Lionel Richie while we’re well into Berry Gordy. But I really like the Twitter integration Social Stream. Automatically fills in “Hey @ CBSNews” on the Ustream page and shows a feed of all @CBSNews messages.

11:04: MTV has a nice, on-time stream but it’s on its own show page, while Facebook integration is on the home page. It’s awkward to split up the conversation like that. Man, MJ had a lot of hits — they’re showing a music video montage.

11:11: While Stevie Wonder plays, Akamai reports more than 2 million live streams across its network. (It handles some 20 percent of the world’s web traffic.)

11:18: USA Today powered by Livestream takes quite awhile to load up, but after that there doesn’t seem to be any lag in the stream. Reports more than 23,500 concurrent watchers. However, comments have been disabled “to help maintain the quality of the video stream.”

11:24: Maybe it’s just because I’ve been watching it since before the service started, but ABC News seems to have the most timely stream, with others lagging behind to varying degrees.

11:38: The New York Times purports to have a live video feed on its home page, but I can’t bring it in. However, it’s running on the ArtsBeat blog.

11:46: Wow, MySpace’s video is just glossy beauty. Really nice big picture.

11:50: Justin.tv’s E! Online feed is running a tasteless overlay ad, but interesting that many of the comments are in non-English languages.

11:58: BBC World News on Livestation actually has a news scroll going at the bottom of the picture. There are other things going on in the world right now?!? Who knew…

12:05: Akamai’s live counting of live streamers around the world seems to be holding steady at just under 2 million.

12:10: Chris says: The InMusic feed keeps disconnecting and we’re getting a low bit-rate. (The site promises HD viewing, but we’re getting a lot less than that.) This particular video stream is powered by Silverlight.

12:18: This is Chris, I’ve had the MSNBC feed on for most of the morning and it’s been a workhorse. Not the prettiest video quality, and the audio has had the occasional blip, but it hasn’t gone down and has been a solid performer.

12:28: Liz again, with stats from Facebook:

CNN is once again utilizing Facebook Connect and the Live Stream Box so that Internet users across the globe can watch the Michael Jackson memorial service live while simultaneously updating their Facebook status and following their Friends on Facebook – and other Jackson fans around the world – without leaving the http://www.facebook.com/l/;CNN.com Live video player. As of 10:30 a.m. PDT, these are the numbers we are seeing just from http://www.facebook.com/l/;CNN.com: • 500,000 status updates • 300,000 users logged in • Approx 6,000 status updates per minute Here is some additional information: • Two weeks after the self-service availability of the Facebook Live Stream Box, we’re seeing it implemented on the home page of E! Online, MTV, ABC News to broadcast the Michael Jackson memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Ca. • The Michael Jackson page (www.facebook.com/michaeljackson) has grown to have nearly 7 million fans, possibly making it the largest single following of any public figure on the Web and 1 million more than President Obama’s page on Facebook • The free Michael Jackson glove virtual gift is the most popular in Facebook history with over 800,000 given away • The Michael Jackson memorial GroupCard received signatures from Facebook users around the world