Royal wedding 2.0: Palace gears up for big day
The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton will be streamed live via YouTube, with royal household staff tweeting updates and posting pictures on photo-sharing site Flickr.
Royal household officials on Tuesday unveiled an official YouTube channel that will live stream the 29 April event so that internet users can watch it anywhere in the world.
Royal wedding viewers on Google-owned YouTube will get the BBC’s coverage, but without the commentary provided by Huw Edwards and the rest of the corporation’s presenting team.
As well as being broadcast live online royal officials will manage a live multimedia blog and augment coverage on a dedicated Twitter feed, @ClarenceHouse, as well as loading images on to Flickr.
“Staff at Clarence House and St James’s Palace will provide a live commentary with historical information, interesting links, additional photographs and video footage as well as an integrated Twitter feed,” the palace said in a statement.
The royal household is encouraging technologically inclined viewers to interact on the day sending messages of congratulations via a Twitter hash tag, #rw2011, and launching an official YouTube “wedding book” where anyone can submit a video of congratulations.
“While millions will be in London for the big day, it’s clear that people around the world have wedding fever,” YouTube announced in a blog post. “Google search trends show that in addition to the UK and the US, the top 10 countries searching for ‘royal wedding’ include places like Singapore and the Philippines.
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For those in different time zones that may find watching live online coverage impossible, YouTube said it will replay the footage immediately after the event concludes. It will then be available to view anytime after.
Facebook users can also click an “I’m attending” button on the social networking service’s ‘The British Monarchy’ page to show their interest.—guardian.co.uk
