Disney.com Re-Launch Has Widgets But Still No Web 2.0

Disney has finally lifted the curtain on the big Disney.com overhaul. The launch was teased in Bog Iger's keynote at CES. I opine on it in my column in this week's Advertising Age, however I didn't see it live until just now. Unfortunately, it's a walled garden that does nothing to bridge to other communities where people already publish. They clearly don't get what Web 2.0 is all about.

One of the big features that Iger touted in the keynote are Disney's widgets. Well, Disney.com definitely has widget functionality in Disney XD. It looks and feels a lot like Mac OS X Tiger. Perhaps Disney was influenced by having Steve Jobs on their board.

However, unlike YourMinis or any other similar platform, you can't add your own content. Oddly enough you can do this on My ESPN, also a Disney site. They let you add the RSS feed of your choice.

What's worse, there's no way to take the Disney widgets and embed them in your own site. Just think of how many millions of citizen marketers would be thrilled to do so! I realize this site is targeted for the younger ones, but some of the TV and movie content is for teens. And many pre-teens and teens have their own blogs and MySpace pages. Look at Jeff Jarvis' son Jake for example. He's a wizard.

As I wrote in the AdAge piece, in this new era Disney's greatest opportunities online lie not in creating bigger walled gardens but in spreading its content far and wide. This means giving rabid fans the content they want where they want it. Yes, Disney needs to get comfortable seeing Mickey and crew on blogs and YouTube. It also means that Disney will need to allow people to adapt its work so they can express their own creativity. That didn't happen and it's too bad.

More in the piece on AdAge.com.

Comments

[Gary]

baby steps. At least they are moving in the right direction. Walled gardens keep my kids safer, too. It's Web 2.0 the Disney Way.

[Jonathan]

there are severe limitations on what can be done to kids under 13, are you familiar with COPPA or CARU? maybe research those a bit and do a new discussion on this new kids portal?

[alex]

Steve,

Thanks for the mention. At yourminis we are launching the ability to run your widgets on the desktop via the apollo platform shortly. This will enable our users to run widgets in a start page environment on yourminis.com, on a personal site / blog / myspace by embedding any of our individual minis, and also on the desktop similar to mac dashboard widgets.

we believe in giving people a choice not only in which widgets they run but also how they access them.

[Hooman Radfar]

Steve, my guess is that Disney will make some moves on this front pretty soon. From what I understand, they have a pretty smart team behind this project.

[Steve]

I see where you're coming from, and I understand the pop-culture desire to take advantage of all new technologies alive on the Web today. However, Disney's not a company to make rush decisions just because of popularity alone. And I'm sure this site redesign has been in development far before many of the new technologies you've mentioned were even in the picture.

Consider this Web D.0 and enjoy the new features; even if you can't syndicate them on your own website. If you really want to market for the website, static text links & social networking should do just fine.

As for YouTube, search and you'll find plenty of fan-driven content, same for Flikr, Digg, yada yada yada. I think the fans are all the marketing Disney.com will need until the next upgrade. Just my thought anyway.

[Mike Stevens]

I can't say I agree with where you are coming from. The content on Disney.com is primarily meant to promote their other businesses while simultaneously engaging youths and teens. It's like a portal into the rest of the Disney universe. What would be served by allowing user defined content to promotional materials? That would be like adding my family videos to TV commercials.

From a legal stance, it would be a potential nightmare if they allowed their intellectual properties to show up syndicated on sites like YouTube and MySpace.

Jonathan said it best... COPPA and CARU define the extent of their options.

I have been to both the California and Florida parks with my family several times, and I can tell you that no company on Earth is under as much scruitiny as they are.

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