Queen's Speech hits YouTube

She may be an octogenarian but Queen Elizabeth has joined the Web 2.0 jamboree just in time for Christmas. The 81-year-old monarch, who annually delivers a televised Christmas day message to her subjects, will this year also see her festive chinwag posted to video sharing website YouTube. Last year's message from the Queen …

[Paul]

Or how about...

Happy slaping Prince Charles?

[Ryan]

"already has some 8,500 subscribers"

Of which 5 are probably British.

Let's face it, the Royal Family are now nothing but a tourism export.

[Dale Harrison]

She doesn't need YouTube...

...Another more suitable URL is still available:-

OnesTube.com

I just can't wait to see if that name actually gets bought!

[igor]

What tube?

As the great George Carlin would say when someone would say that the country is going down the tubes, "What Tubes"

What tube?

[aeshna juncea]

' comments disabled '

Title says it all.

Must be scared of hearing what the public does think of them.

[Warren Ashcroft]

Well Spotted - Got It!

http://www.OnesTube.com/

[BitTwister]

@Dale Harrison

Nice try - it's gone now...

[PunkTiger]

What a great idea!

For an incorrigible Anglophile like myself, this is pure gold.

Say what you will about it; bash on the Queen and the Monarchy all you want, but I find the entire concept fascinating. Not because of the Royalty aspect, but by the fact these films and videos are being made available for the public view instead of wasting away in some archive somewhere where only a select few ever gets a chance to see them.

One of the films they have available is the Royal Wedding in 1923. Think about that. A silent film document of an event that happened in 1923. Who would think that an ephemeral piece like that (probably made for a newsreel of the time) would be viewed with interest nearly 85 years later? And the film itself (for its age) is in remarkable shape!

I would like to see the archivists in the U.S. government get their collective heads together and place archival films of Presidential inaugurations and special events of this quality on YouTube. Would there still be usable newsreel footage from the 1920s?

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Warren Ashcroft

brilliant!

[paul]

re: comments disabled

they weren't disabled at the outset.

i managed to get one in.

it wasn't polite, but it was to the point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Idea good, choice of site bad!

Yes, a sensible idea that one of the few remaining monarchies in the world should wish to keep pace with modern technology. However it would have been so much better to have established a UK web-site to communicate whatever Her Majesty, or the Royal Press Office wishes to say, rather than using this ridiculous jokey thing that is generally used by youngsters and often for very "doubtful" material !

One wonders whether HM could possibly approve of this. More could be said of course, but the damage is done now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What a great idea!

In France, INA is offering online the TV news from their archives (http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/?vue=jn). Currently, 1976 to 2005 have been digitalized, and some older broadcasts (news and others, http://www.ina.fr/archivespourtous/?vue=corpuse) of special interest are as early as 1927.

[Ian Osborne]

Her Majesty's Youtube Channel

I bet she had to ask her grandkids how to upload it! ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: ' comments disabled '

"Must be scared"

Yes, that must be it.

[Charlie Clark]

Thin end of the wedge

While all the historical footage is extremely interesting this site along with direct addresses should not be welcomed because in a democratic the "powers that be" should never have unmediated access to the public. This site and all of its kind are unavoidably propaganda.

[Colin Millar]

@Charlie

" the "powers that be" should never have unmediated access to the public"

I can think of lots of people who would just love that but that theory always ends up the same way - established church, NEDC, Partnerships - when you force communication into approved channels the bodies concerned become part of the organisation and lose their value as civic groups. And if you don't have approved channels you just end up with self-selecting elites mediating the communication - media barons, political parties, trade unions, religious organisations, wikipedia.

Anyway - Mondeo man destroyed civic society in the UK in 1987 - there is currently a vacancy for a coherent political theory of capitalist democracies for c21.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Colin Millar

The Mark 1 Mondeo first came out in 1993.