For those of us who regularly use the British Monarchy web site in the course of our jobs, it’s an exciting day.

Suddenly Her Majesty is big in cyberspace. The royal site has long given basic facts in a dusty sort of way. But yesterday’s flamboyant revamp unveiled by the Queen herself, revealed a wealth of information past, present and future. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, there are wonderful historic snippets like a video of the Queen’s famous 21st birthday speech from Cape Town followed by more than five decades of royal life and change.

For us, practical matters like who is going where and when, is invaluable. And the site is geared to that sort of instant and interesting information.

And it seems that she has enthusiastically masterminded much of this new look herself. Amazing really when you remember that at the beginning of her reign, Elizabeth 11 even resisted TV filming of her Coronation. She did eventually, if reluctantly, agree and as a result, at that great occasion in 1953, the cameras rolled inside the Abbey for the first time to record a State occasion.

By the time a new electronic age was dawning, Her Majesty had her own children and then very savvy grandchildren to egg her on to grasp the new technology. Nowadays, she regularly talks to them on her royal mobile phone and expertly e-mails family, friends and staff.

Last October, she was taking it all in at the London headquarters of Google and in 2007, launched The Royal Channel on YouTube, the global video-sharing website now owned by Google.

YouTube was launched in February 2005 and by July of the following year was recording more than 100 million videos being watched every day.

The Queen decided the new channel would enable her to be “more personal and more direct” in her worldwide dealings with the public. She is often heard advising people needing information ‘why don’t you Google it?’

And yesterday, she even had icon Sir Tim Berners-Lee at the website re-launch.

On December 25, 1990, Sir Tim made the first successful communication between an HTTP client and server across the internet, and so effectively inventing the World Wide Web.

A web which has caught the imagination and attention of millions, not least our increasingly amazing Queen!

Check out the British Monarchy website here

Shropshire Star royal correspondent Shirley Tart