Not exactly a surprise, but telling nonetheless:
Google says that between 7:30 and 8:30 pm PST (which was right around the time the news broke over Twitter), Google saw an one million percent increase in searches for the term ‘bin laden.’
For basis of comparison, you can see a chart below comparing searches for the Royal Wedding on Google Trends. The Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton also drew massive amounts of web traffic from around the world, but clearly the search volume for news and information around Bin Laden’s death came in at a much higher scale.
LATER: And the ‘Situation Room’ Photo Is Already Half Way To Becoming Flickr’s Most Viewed Pic.