The Queen visits Google's London headquarters

By Nick Heath on 17 October 2008, 10:26am

The Queen joined the Web 2.0 generation yesterday when she uploaded a clip to YouTube for the first time.

The monarch took the leap into the wired world as she and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, were shown around Google's London HQ, which is down the road from Buckingham Palace.

The Queen, who admitted she did not even own a computer four years ago, joined the ranks of teenage narcissists worldwide by posting her YouTube video, a 1969 reception for British Olympians to The Royal Channel.

Her whirlwind induction continued with a face-to-face meeting with the less than regally named daveyboyz, aka David Bass, and other UK YouTube superstars Peter Oakley and Lauren Luke.

The Royal Channel launched in December 2007 and received more than one million channel views in its first week, making it one of the fastest growing channels of all time.

The Queen has a history of embracing technology -- in 1953 she allowed television cameras inside Westminster Abbey during a state occasion for her coronation and in 1976 she became the first monarch to send an email during a visit to an army base.

Google European president Nikesh Arora headed up a group of 50 staff and senior management in a meet and greet with the Queen. The tour immersed the royals in all things Google, with a demonstration of the ubiquitous search engine, a tour of Google Earth and a talk on Google advertising and its contribution to UK industry.

The London office includes Google's global mobile engineering centre, as well as handling product management, marketing, people operations, legal, communications, sales and finance.

Her Majesty did not leave Google empty handed, having been presented with a gift of Google code printed on aluminium by Arora.

Her visit puts her in tune with the UK, as it's estimated people here spend more time online than residents of any other European country, with an average of 33 hours per month online, visiting 3,252 pages.

Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh also met winners of the Doodle 4 Google contest, which asked young people from across the UK to design their own doodle.

Google marked the visit with its trademark topical Google doodle on its homepage, with the second 'g' in Google replaced by the Queen's head and the final 'e' topped off with a crown. -Nick Heath

Note: This story was originally published on silicon.com as a photo gallery.