The Royal Wedding and the Web – A View From the UK

Well, the Royal Wedding has come and soon, perhaps the public attention it has been receiving will simmer down. That goes for the exploitation by cyber criminals, we reported on yesterday. They’...
The Royal Wedding and the Web – A View From the UK
Written by Chris Crum
  • Well, the Royal Wedding has come and soon, perhaps the public attention it has been receiving will simmer down. That goes for the exploitation by cyber criminals, we reported on yesterday. They’re sending spam emails and using black hat SEO tactics to spread rogue antivirus software.

    We reached out to our friend Neil Marshall, Director of Forum Operations at WebmasterWorld, who is based in the UK to get a view of the whole phenomenon from closer to home.

    “I can tell you that there is wall-to-wall media coverage here in the UK, and that it’s unavoidable,” he says. “For me, I haven’t seen too much spam as I have quite good filters on my e-mail and Twitter, but, it has been quite surprising how business has grasped the opportunity with ‘Royal Wedding’ special offers of varying kinds.”

    “Of course, there’s the memorabilia which is everywhere here in the UK,” he adds.

    “Social media has been interesting, in that there’s a lot of individuals that feel strongly about how this Royal Wedding is costing a great deal of money to stage, especially following the hardship of the last few years with he Banking crisis,” Marshall says. “For many, they are still suffering hardship, so it’s hard for them to accept significant sums being spent. That is countered by many that see it is as just the kind of spirit-raising, positive event the country needs.”

    View Wedding of Prince William of Wales and Kate Middleton and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.

    “I see it as a positive thing,” he tells us. “It brings in many tourists, who then spend money in hotels and restaurants. The TV media coverage seems to be from around the world, with just about every major country taking a slot in media row.”

    Of course the event has been streaming live on YouTube, as previously reported, not only demonstrating just how big the wedding itself is, but how important a medium YouTube is becoming for attracting worldwide views to major events.

    “Twitter is abuzzin’ #royalwedding and there’s huge interest in who’s wearing what,” says Marshall.

    “The mobile experience is especially important for those not by a TV screen,” he says. “For those near a screen, many are actively tweeting while watching. I’ve seen this going on for some time with live events, and believe it will become more common. Sites such as the BBC are feeding live texts on their website.”

    As of the time of this writing, Royal Wedding-related keywords are still all over Google Trends.

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