Back in the 60s, the Beatles managed the rarest of coups: to be at the artistic cutting edge while also achieving unprecedented popularity.
These days the Fabs are if anything, even more popular - the Live 8 version of Sgt Pepper is one of the bestselling downloads. But insofar as they exist at all, the Beatles are now a corporate monolith dedicated to preserving the legend and milking the cash cow.
Because of the high standards of innnovation they set themselves in the 60s, their official website has to show it embraces modern technology. Hitherto it has done this by emphasising style over content. The graphics may well be state of the art, but they are also intrusive.
There's been little information beyond a cursory discography (which misses out the singles and the EPs, many of which featured tracks unavailable on the 60s albums) and mini-sites promoting recent products such as the revamped Yellow Submarine and Let It Be albums.
This week, however, Beatles.com relaunched, upping its content quotient with a much more user-friendly monthly magazine, named Words.
The pop-up-heavy graphics are still there (to misquote A Day in the Life, I'd love to turn them off), but there's also an exclusive video of Come Together and details of a 2006 Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas endorsed by Apple Corps.
Let's hope Words is a sign that Macca and Ringo's webmasters acknowledge that while love may have been all fans needed in the 60s, in the noughties it's not quite enough.
