Announcement of bin Laden death set Internet abuzz

PanARMENIAN.Net - The announcement of the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has set the Internet abuzz, as users searched for information and shared their thoughts on the killing of one of the world's most wanted men.

An IT consultant in Abottabad, the town where bin Laden was killed, inadvertently "live blogged" an early sign of the military operation on Twitter, without realizing its importance until much later.

Sohaib Athar, who uses the id @ReallyVirtual on Twitter, wrote "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)," followed shortly after by "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S."

He now has over 14,000 followers on the micro-blogging site. He moved to Abottabad from Lahore for some "peace and quiet," he said, according to IDG News Service.

The events will provide an opportunity for malicious websites to infect computers by tricking users into visiting their sites for more information, warned security experts.

Twitter reported that its site carried more than 4,000 messages per second at the beginning and end of Obama's speech. The death of bin Laden, Abottabad, and Navy Seal, the special operations force that killed bin Laden, were among the top topics being discussed on Twitter a couple of hours after Obama's announcement.

Google Trends also reported that "osama bin laden dead" was the hottest search on May 1 in the U.S., followed by some other search items that are related to the death of bin Laden.

On Facebook, a page "Osama Bin Laden is DEAD" had 258,400 people who "liked" the page, many of whom commented on bin Laden's death. The page appears to have been set up before the death of bin Laden was announced, and subscribes to the theory that bin Laden was already dead a long time ago.