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Social media invite you to the royal wedding!

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

BANGALORE, INDIA: If the royal weddings were a subject of fairy tales and bedtime stories in the yesteryears, today it is more of a social media event where bloggers and Internet players celebrate everything — from news to videos to gossips.

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So, naturally the much-hyped marriage between Prince William and his college sweetheart Kate Middleton, is not going to be any different. A marriage that is going to be written on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace and much more.

And on the broadcasting front, literally every TV networks around the globe has descended upon London to make sure that their audience don't miss Prince William — Kate Middleton wedding. Even as they have planned to broadcast the wedding live, they are also making it big on video streaming sites as well as microblogging sites.

ABC News planning to track the conversation on Twitter

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ABC News is planning to track and influence the conversation happening on Twitter, as social media is the place where millions are expected to watch and discuss the royal wedding. Twitter and ABC came up with #RoyalMess and #RoyalSuccess to indicate a tweeter's opinion of "every guest and every dress," said Andrew Morse, ABC News Digital's executive producer for innovation.

When William's parents, Diana and Charles married in 1981, Internet was yet to happen and television was slowly making inroads into countries like India — only the luckiest few had the privilege to watch the colourful wedding on their balck-and-white TV scree even. But today the social landscape has changed and whatever happens offline is updated online the next second. Privacy gone, publicity in!

According to a media report, London-based Web analytics firm Greenlight said last week that there are an average of 9,000 posts per day related to the Royal Wedding, and chatter about the event is generating one mention every 10 seconds on the Web.

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And on TV, programmes like NBC's special "Inside The Royal Wedding" were rated high.

When Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer nearly 30 years ago, an estimated 750 million people viewed the ceremony. Friday's event in Westminster Abbey will be seen live or in a delayed broadcast by more than 2 billion people, by most estimates, and by another 400 million online over YouTube, Google, Yahoo or on other sites, according to estimates.

First and biggest event of the digital broadcast age

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The first and biggest event of the digital broadcast age, the royal wedding is also the most interactive media experience of all time because the royals have chosen to reach out to their audience through social media from a Facebook page to Twitter to various apps that will allow people to watch on their iPad or cell phone or other devices, according to Alex Ben Block of Reuters.

Google and its YouTube unit are the official providers of the live stream of the events, but lots of others on broadcast and online have climbed aboard the royal bandwagon as well. The YouTube page has already recorded nearly 750,000 views so far.

The official royal wedding site has all the updates and links to the marriage ceremony, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc.

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YouTube bets big

The web giants are all set to celebrate it in all possible ways. Yahoo, for instance, has had more than 80 million people click from its home page to special pages dedicated to wedding coverage, and about 200,000 people have taken the trouble to sign their online guest book and provide comments for the royal couple.

"People are extremely interested," says Jessica Jensen, VP of Yahoo Shine (the section aimed at women). "We have had an incredible outpouring of interest for Shine. We have already surpassed all records, and we're sure tonight and tomorrow will bring new records."

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While Google has the official stream, Yahoo will have a live video stream as well, provided by ABC News, which in turn bought its rights from a British provider.

But who exactly is going to watch hundreds of hours of programs that started Thursday night and will run throughout the weekend and into next week on broadcast, cable and online? Based on who watched the shows leading up to the event, it's the ladies.

"We put it on our women's site because we believe women are naturally more interested in pretty dresses and fun events like this," says Jensen. "We have seen a very, very wide age range from teens to older women but definitely skewing extremely female."

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Yahoo drew 6 million unique visitors to its wedding site last month, which Jensen says was "very impressive," but nothing compared to the past 10 days when, she adds, "it has just caught fire."

The Yahoo coverage is global, Jensen adds, with 10 special sites and features around the world. "Not surprisingly the Commonwealth countries are showing particular interest," she adds, "but it's also huge in Brazil. Its definitely a global event."

The marriage certainly has drawn a global media thong. About 8,500 journalists are in London, most of whom will be crammed into temporary studios set up next to the Canada Gate at Buckingham Palace. At least 36 studios have sprung up for everyone from the U.K.'s Sky News to the major American networks (with CBS' Katie Couric, NBC's Brian Williams and ABC's Diane Sawyer among those on hand) and even al-Jazeera, all housed in a three-story structure with equipment overflowing into nearly Green Park.

Inside Westminster Abbey, the wedding and 1,900 guests will be captured by 40 cameras, a dozen still photographers and 28 reporters. The BBC is one of the few actually operating inside, with part of its staff of 550 dedicated to the event.

The U.S. broadcasters won't just be broadcasting either. Taking their cue from the media-savvy happy couple, ABC will be twittering, NBC will twitter and has a Facebook page, as does CNN, among others.

So, the waiting time is over, and it's time to watch and witness!

(With inputs from Reuters)

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