As shared in an earlier post, the Michael Jackson memorial and passing really put a worldwide spotlight on how people are actively using the Internet to share their grief, express their sorrow and memorialize this international entertainer.

The thing is this ... regular, non-celebrity type of people were and already have been using the Internet to share their loss or their experiences at memorials, burials and wakes well before MJ's passing. Yet with MJs death, it seems like attention to and awareness of "Internet mourning" and web memorializations have been thrust forward unlike ever before.

Given the extensive media coverage of MJ's passing, folks in the death care services arena who were previously unaware of how people would, could and do use the Internet to assemble gatherings, tributes and online memorials are now hopefully much more aware and enlightened on the subject.

And for those folks who were already aware of these kinds of web-related funeral activities online, perhaps then a better understanding of how people are using the Internet much more today to reach out, share and express their sentiments may have been developed.

For MJ's memorial, absolutely every form of online communication has been used including blogs, online photo galleries, Facebook, videos on YouTube, tweets on Twitter and much, much more.

Hopefully, funeral service providers and death care professionals were *watching* this phenomenon closely. I hope it was a wake up call to those who have not considered (or deny) how the Internet is and continues to change death.

Various timely examples, thoughts and commentary on this topic are forthcoming.