Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger gave a keynote address at CES where he unveiled the new Disney.com. According to the WSJ.com CES blog the site is going to be heavy on widgets, video and personalization. Iger called it a doorway to Disney's content.
As a long time fan and former employee of the company, I was excited to hear about Disney 2.0. Unfortunately, at first glance, it may not go far enough. I will reserve final judgment until the site launches.
Disney is in an interesting situation. They certainly have an unprecedented cache of content; this is stuff that people - including yours truly - love. On the other hand, our attention is migrating to other sites where we can create content of our own. Sometimes, this includes unauthorized mashups and modifications of copyrighted content that Disney owns.
Media companies in Disney's position need to think about more than just how to get more people on their own properties. They should take a picture in picture approach. Give us stuff that we can integrate into our own worlds, no matter where we publish.
Disney has done this so well in the real world. They don't just have theme parks. They have a huge licensing division that earns billions by allowing people to express themselves through the purchase of character merchandise such as clothing. They need to port this same approach to the Web.
For example, Disney should take all of their characters and create Myspace themes. Or take some of their music and video library and make it freely available online so that we can integrate it into our own creations.
This is perhaps their biggest opportunity online. Will they grab it? One hopes.
Tags: bobiger, disney, waltdisneycompany, disney.com
