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Any 140-character loving guests attending the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Catherine (Kate) Middleton will be sorely disappointed, as signal-blocking technology will be installed at Westminster Abbey to nix cellphone use.

According to Yahoo, the idea was suggested by members of the royal family and confirmed by police and security. They hope nixing phones and tweeting will cut down on news photos and videos featuring cellphone-toting guests, distracting ringtones and info about the wedding getting out ahead of the ceremony.

The absence of Twitter at the actual event doesn’t mean the web will go silent, obviously — in fact, talk of the Royal Wedding is accelerating rapidly on Facebook and Twitter.

And, hey, at least no one will be fired during the event — a Buckingham Palace guard was already dismissed from his royal wedding day duties after calling the bride-to-be a “stuck up cow” and “posh bitch” on Facebook.

Update: We’re hearing this morning that both Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police are denying that signals will be blocked during the wedding. Apparently, it’s “rubbish,” according to Met police spokesman Eddie Townsend. h/t Paul Chaloner

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, The British Monarchy

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One hardly need look at the numbers to know that talk of the Royal Wedding is accelerating rapidly ahead of the April 29 event. The numbers are nevertheless enlightening, especially in light of where and among whom conversations about the Royal Wedding are occurring.

News stories (as indexed by Bing) are up nearly sevenfold to 7 million per day since the beginning of the month. Blog posts have more than doubled from 46.7 million on April 5 to 102.9 million, according to data obtained from Trendrr.

According to Nielsen, the Royal Wedding has made up more than 0.3% of all news coverage in the U.S. since the engagement was announced. YouTube videos tagged with top Royal Wedding-related keywords (Royal Wedding, Kate Middleton, etc.) have grown more than 10 times from 37.5k per day to 460k per day.

Perhaps the most amusing is the rise in Royal Wedding-related eBay auctions, up from 7,435 in mid-February to more than 400,000 this week.

Just as with the U.S. media, more of the American public is talking about the Royal Wedding than their U.K. counterparts. 40% of Royal Wedding-related, English language tweets originate from the U.S., followed by the UK (31%), Canada (8%), Australia (6%), Indonesia (4%) and India (3%), Trendrr finds.

Interestingly, on a per capita basis, most tweets are originating from small American towns, such as New Haven, CT; Lubbock, TX; and Tulsa, OK, rather than big cities.

Overall, tweets about the Royal Wedding have quadrupled since the beginning of the month, averaging nearly 5,000 per hour over the last week and accelerating quickly in recent days. Sentiment has been mixed; 46% of tweets are positive, 43% are neutral and 12% are negative.

A Trendrr spokesperson says that the data has been difficult to track because of the volume and range of topics related to the wedding. The data doesn’t include, for instance, mentions of Kate’s ring, because tweets with the keywords “#Kate” and “ring” don’t necessarily refer to Kate Middleton. Including them would “spoil the data pools,” he said, meaning that actual discussion related to the event is undoubtedly much greater.

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, The British Monarchy

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A Buckingham Palace guard has been dismissed from his royal wedding day duties after calling bride-to-be Catherine (Kate) Middleton a “stuck up cow” and “posh bitch” on Facebook.

Eighteen-year-old Scots Guardman Cameron Reilly (pictured), who lists “causing trouble” and “super-strength lager” among his interests on his since-removed Facebook profile, wrote of Catherine and Will: “hur and william drove past me on friday n all a got was a shitty wave while she looked the opposite way from me, stupid stuck up cow am a not good enough for them! posh bitch am totally with u on this 1 who reely gives a f*** about hur.”

Reilly, who joined the army last year, was scheduled to be among the several hundred Scots Guards lining the route of the wedding procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace on Friday.

Reilly is also being investigated for racist and anti-Semitic comments left on the site, the UK Press Association reports. Among the items: “a was gonae put a few rifles in ma bergan anaw but then a remembered a couldnt fit any in cause a had 2 many paki’s scalps in it already.”

The Ministry of Defence said in a statement: “In view of the nature of the allegation, it would not be appropriate for the individual to be on parade for The Royal Wedding.”

[via The Huffington Post]

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St. James’s Palace launched Wednesday an official hub for the forthcoming wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

As anticipation builds for the event, which is scheduled to occur on April 29 at Westminister Abbey, visitors can get their royal fix via a stream of news, pictures and videos at officialroyalwedding2011.org. People are also invited to follow updates via Twitter, YouTube, Facebook (launched in November) and Flickr. New content from those properties is included in a right-hand sidebar.

The first details about Kate Middleton’s wedding dress will be posted on the site, a spokesperson for St. James’s Palace wrote. It might even live stream a broadcast of the big day.

The site was built by Accenture, with creative input from the Reading Room. Google’s App Engine is hosting the site, chosen for its ability “to handle large, global peaks in web traffic,” a spokesperson explained.

Whether you’re enchanted or repulsed by the hype surrounding the Royal Wedding, we can at least applaud the British Monarchy’s progressive use of social media to keep the world abreast of one of 2011′s most highly anticipated events. Clarence House originally announced the engagement on Twitter in November, and again used the service to name the maid of honor, best man, bridesmaids and page boy.

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, The British Monarchy

[via What Kate Wore]

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A Church of England bishop has been suspended indefinitely after posting a series of negative comments on Facebook about Prince William and Kate Middleton's engagement.Pete Broadbent, the bishop of Willesden, wrote that their marriage would last a mere seven years and that their wedding day would be full of "nauseating tosh," according to The Guardian."We need a party in Calais for all good republicans who can't stand the nauseating tosh that surrounds this event," he wrote.The comments have since gone public, inciting the dismay of politicians and fellow members of the Church. Broadbent has since issued an apology, but it was not enough to save him from suspension.In a statement released on Tuesday, Broadbent's superior, the Bishop of London Richard Chartres, said, "I have now had an opportunity to discuss with Bishop Peter how his comments came to be made and I have noted his unreserved apology. Nevertheless, I have asked him to withdraw from public ministry until further notice."This is not the first employee termination to occur in response to comments posted on social networking sites. A 2009 study found that 8% of U.S. companies (including Domino's and California Pizza Kitchen) have sacked an employee for conduct on social networking sites. This year, a CNN editor was forced to resign after posting a controversial message to Twitter. That said, in a U.S. lawsuit earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board argued that a recent Facebook-related termination was unlawful, and that Facebook posts are legally protected speech.Do you agree with the bishop's termination? How comfortable do you feel about posting your opinions on social networks, given that your employer may come across them?

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