YouTube video is uploaded by the Queen

Google’s YouTube is rated as the number-one video site on the Internet. No surprise there. What may come as a surprise is that the Royal head of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II – who has always embraced the latest technology – is a supporter.

In December 2007, the Queen encouraged the successful launch on YouTube of the Royal Channel – the official channel of the UK monarchy – and it received more than a million viewings in the first week. And recently, the Queen and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited Google’s London centre and the occasion ended with the Monarch personally uploading some archive footage to YouTube.

The Royal Channel

Her Majesty’s new technology CV is impressive:

• 1953 – the Queen allows TV cameras inside Westminster Abbey for the first time during a state occasion for her coronation. More than 500,000 TV sets were sold in the UK in weeks running up to the event.

• 1976 – the Queen becomes the first UK monarch to send an email during a visit to an army base.

• 1997 – the Queen launches the royal website www.royal.gov.uk during a visit to a school in London.

• 2006 – the Christmas broadcast, or “Queen’s speech”, is podcast for the first time.

• 2007 – the Queen launches the Royal Channel on YouTube.

The Royal Channel was launched on 23 December 2007, with archive footage of the Queen’s first televised Christmas message from 1957; the footage was made public for the first time since the original broadcast.

Two days after launch, the Queen’s 2007 Christmas broadcast was distributed through YouTube at 1500 hours, the same time as it was broadcast on TV.

Both the Queen and the Duke took a great interest in our technology and it was wonderful to see the Queen personally upload a video to YouTube

Nikesh Arora

President

Google (Europe, Middle East & Africa)

According to Google, the Royal Channel received more than one million channel views in its first week, making it one of the fastest growing channels of all time.

There are now 54 videos on the Royal Channel, and the statisticians say that the clips have been viewed 4.5 million times.

Nikesh Arora, president of Google (Europe, Middle East & Africa), who hosted the royal visit, said: “We were honoured to welcome the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to our London office. Both the Queen and the Duke took a great interest in our technology and it was wonderful to see the Queen personally upload a video to YouTube.”

The Royal Household has been working with the British Film Institute to provide relevant archive footage for the Royal Channel.

Every minute, 13 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube, the equivalent of Hollywood releasing 57,000 new full-length movies every week, according to Google.

UK leads e-commerce

Google’s London office, with about 600 employees, is the company’s global mobile engineering centre. In addition, it has a variety of other functions including product management, marketing, people operations, legal, communications, sales and finance.

There is plenty of data to confirm that the UK as a nation has truly logged on to the Internet age. The UK online population is now 38 million. By 2012 some 43 million people in the UK will be online each month, representing nearly 70 per cent of the population, according to the latest industry figures.

Each UK user now spends seven hours a week of their leisure time online, according to a recent report. Meanwhile, the UK is leading e-commerce in the world. The Internet Advertising Bureau predicts that almost 20 per cent of total advertising spend will be online.

In the UK, people spend more time online than residents of any other European country, with an average of 33 hours a month online, visiting 3,250 pages, according to figures from comScore in September 2007.