LONDON: The man not yet king of England is facing his sternest test yet. Public expectations are high. The event is to be played out across a challenging new medium of communication, and the family turns to professionals for help. When Prince William and Kate Middleton marry on April 29, they will be the 16th royal couple to wed in Westminster Abbey – but they will be the first to have their nuptials played out, in real time, as a global web event. In a sign of the digital times, William's official residence, Clarence House, in November chose Twitter, along with an old-fashioned press release, to announce his engagement to his university sweetheart. With over 28,000 followers on the microblogging site, the @ClarenceHouse page has been regularly used to reveal details about the ceremony. The royals also have channels on Facebook, YouTube and the photo-sharing Flickr site – although their online popularity lags behind that of Jordan's Queen Rania, who has nearly one-and-a-half million followers on Twitter and more than 600,000 fans on Facebook. The British royal family have just over 323,000 “likes” on the site.
