You old romantics you…72 million live streams in 188 countries for the Royal Wedding on YouTube

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are YouTube's newest megastars. Though half the globe was still in darkness, YouTube users from across the world got wedding fever for the Royal Household's official live stream of the landmark wedding on The Royal Channel.

The Royal Wedding was live streamed 72 million times around the world to 188 countries. Those who didn’t see it live still had an opportunity to don their fascinators and catch up with the re-broadcasts later in the day. When it was all said and done, the total streams on April 29, 2011 reached 101 million as romantics around the globe tuned in to watch the fairytale ceremony, the procession and the final balcony kiss.

And what a kiss it was…during the 10 seconds around the highly-anticipated Royal kiss, the YouTube channel site, powered by Google App Engine, experienced an additional 100,000 requests on top of the already high load … an effective additional 10,000 requests per second.

Live streams were highest in the UK and the US, but looks like love was in the air across the channel as well. The top 5 countries viewing the live event online were:

1. United Kingdom
2. United States
3. Italy
4. Germany
5. France

The online excitement extended to The Official Royal Wedding website. Since the launch on March 2, there have been approximately 37.7 million page views from 13.7 million visitors to the site, which was hosted on Google App Engine and built by Accenture.

The entire live stream of the Royal Wedding, along with video highlights can be found on The Royal Channel.

Congratulations to The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!

Rachel Ball, partner development associate, recently watched “Best Wishes from Mr. McGrail's United States History Class.”