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House of Windsor is home on the Web
March 6, 1997
Web posted at: 7:56 p.m. EST (0056 GMT)From Correspondent Richard Blystone
LONDON (CNN) -- The empire is long gone and the royal yacht is headed for the junkyard, but the sun never sets on the British monarchy's new site on the World Wide Web, officially unveiled in a low-key ceremony at a British high school on Thursday.
Although students at the Kingsbury high school seemed to understand the difference between a royal page and a royal home page better than the royal family did, Queen Elizabeth II was nonetheless supportive of the new medium. "It is important that we all learn about the Internet and get the most benefit from it," she told the students.
The 150-page site, at www.royal.gov.uk, includes press releases, information on the family's art collection, and biographies for members of the royal family. It also explains how the accession, coronation and succession to the throne work.
And, it promises frank answers to "your most asked questions," the top 18 questions to be precise -- for example, what's the most exotic animal ever owned by the royal family? It wasn't a corgi, the little dog much beloved by the queen. According to the site, it was a Nubian giraffe, given to George IV in 1827 by the Pasha of Egypt.
An official web site marks a big step forward for royal news transmittal. For years the royal news was terrestrially delivered by the likes of Majesty Magazine, or the official court circular in the newspapers.
"This is a belated attempt by the Buckingham Palace organization to bring itself into the 20th century, never mind the 21st century," said Ross Benson of the Daily Express.
It also makes it possible for a whole new level of palace-touring. Every summer, thousands of people queue up for a peek at Buckingham Palace while the queen's away. Now, people thousands of miles away will be able to do the same thing -- only instead of being in line, they'll be online.
However, don't look for new levels of direct conversation with the queen, said Andrew Hawkins of the Internet Cafe. "You can go to this Web site, you can read about the openings of the queen's gallery and the state rooms, but you are not going to be sitting there having a conversation with the queen," he said.
The queen may not have known it, but her family was already on the Internet at several unauthorized sites, including www.royalnetwork.com, which hosts information on Prince William on a page called "Your Internet Guide to the Hunk in Training," and another page called "Club Di."
And while the Duchess of York, the former Sarah Ferguson, was left off the official royal home page, she has a home on the Royal Network site, where Fergie fans urge you to show your support.
There's even a place to chat with other royal enthusiasts. Don't bother e-mailing the royals; they get quite enough through the royal postal system already.
But if the royals themselves crave contact with other crowned heads, at least half a dozen are known to be wired in, from Queen Margarethe of Denmark to Swaziland's King Mswati.
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