The Queen launches new-look royal web site

The Queen's Royal.gov.uk site was launched in 1997

The Queen is to launch an overhauled version of the Royal.gov.uk web site at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace today alongside World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Sir Tim will give a short speech on the history of the World Wide Web before helping to launch the revamped site, which will reportedly include more detailed information about the royal family, enhanced audio and video footage and a more user-friendly interface.

Royal.gov.uk was launched in 1997 and currently enjoys about 250,000 visits a week. The site was visited over 100 million times in its first year, and recorded an astounding 35 million hits in the week after Princess Diana's death.

The Queen is apparently keen to keep the younger generation tuned in to the monarchy, hence the web site facelift. Never-before-seen documents and photos from the Royal archives include sections from Queen Victoria's journal in which she describes using Alexander Graham Bell's telephone invention for the first time.

Users will also be able to follow the Royals' movements on a daily basis on Google Maps, with icons to show where they are in the country on any given day.

The Queen's diary, as well as those of the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke of York, Princess Anne and the Earl and Countess of Wessex, will also be available for perusal.

The official Royal website is not the Queen's only online presence. The monarch launched her own YouTube channel in 2007 which features her Christmas speeches as well as other royal video footage.