Posh pushes boundaries

Victoria Beckham's website is a family affair

By BBC News Online's Emma Saunders

Madonna may be the queen of pop but you wouldn't know it from looking at Victoria Beckham's new website.

Welcome to Beckingham Palace, a tongue-in-cheek tour around her new family home.

The Daily Mail describes entering the site: "Open the tall, white wrought-iron gates and who is that standing by the big brown front door? Why, it's Victoria 'Posh Spice' Beckham, welcoming her fans to her tacky new website."

The site is loosely based on the new house that she, husband David and son Brooklyn are moving into.

As you enter the site through the "palace" gates and into the reception area, it is evident that Posh is sending up her Hello! image.

The website emulates Victoria's spoof royal image

Victoria, David and Brooklyn each have a throne and every section of the site is in a different room of the house.

The site is nicely designed, all decked out in regal purple of course, and relatively easy to navigate around.

It is clear that Mrs Beckham has decided to stick to the youth following that kept the Spice Girls on top for so long.

There is a hide-and-seek element to finding the various sections, as you click on doors and household objects to gain access.

The competitions (Spot the Dog and Roald Dahl) are obviously aimed at her younger fans, as are the football game and space invaders.

As for the rest of the content, she covers all the bases that a promoting popstar should.

The site includes a picture gallery (in the hallway), a forum (in the study) and her new single is accessed via the juke box.

The forum had lots of scary obsessive messages from fans who will no doubt log on to the live webcast later today.

It would all be just colourful fun if it wasn't for the disturbing element of exploitation.

Brooklyn and David's "secrets" are revealed

In the webcam interview in her mum's kitchen (surely designed to show that a Gucci girl can still be down-to-earth), she complains of lack of privacy when out with her family.

This is hard to swallow when you click on Brooklyn and David's thrones to discover mini-biographies and "secrets".

It is distasteful enough to be invited into a mock-up of Brooklyn's bedroom but then we also learn that his favourite clothes are Gap Kids and Armani Kids.

David's favourite crisps are pickled onion Monster Munch (good choice) and his favourite singer is - you guessed it - his wife.

This may all sound like harmless fun but it is hardly fair to put your toddler in the spotlight when he is too young to make a choice.

To top it all off, there is a webcam of Victoria's sister's clothes shop, a thinly veiled advertisement if ever there was one.

By this point, you have to ask, who cares?

The answer of course, is the fans who have provided Posh with her Prada and palace lifestyle in the first place.

Perhaps it is gratitude that compels her to divulge such personal information.

Maybe it is a näive attempt to be friends with her fans.

Either way, it's a shame, since it takes the edge off what would otherwise be just a fun and comprehensive pop website.

As it is, it may be only the fans who are chanting Brooklyn's favourite words: "More please".