Iger's speech, future of Disney.com, new Disney MMOs, etc.

[kronk's angel]

Lots of coverage on Bob Iger's speech here:
http://tinyurl.com/y8673r

New Disney.com homepage should be launching "soon." Looks more like a traditional web site. Supposed to have more social interaction doo hickeys.

Read this sum-up on a Narnia blog:

Disney’s CEO Bob Iger told the assembled crowd at his CES keynote address yesterday that the company plans to bring it’s hottest properties to ‘the virtual realm’ with the first major MMO-game being Pirates of the Caribbean due to launch later this year. [Other reports noted it would be free to play, like VMK.]

Iger told the CES audience, “We plan to build more virtual worlds like Pirates, based on a broad range of our properties, where we will invite our guests to become a part of our stories. Imagine living in Buzz and Woody’s toy universe; joining an epic adventure in the lands of Narnia; racing Lightning McQueen through Radiator Springs; sharing the superpowers of the Incredibles or entering the magic world of Cinderella and the other Disney princesses.”

SPOnG has just spoken with Sandra van Vreedendaal, Disney’s corporate communications director for Europe, who was cagier about the keynote, telling us, “Bob’s speech yesterday was more about imagining where we are going in the future. Of course, we have many IPs [Intellectual Properties] such as Toy Story, Cars, Narnia, The Incredibles. We are imagining that these things could be possible but at the moment have no firm plans.”

[GhostHost]

Lots of coverage on Bob Iger's speech here:
http://tinyurl.com/y8673r

New Disney.com homepage should be launching "soon." Looks more like a traditional web site. Supposed to have more social interaction doo hickeys.

Read this sum-up on a Narnia blog:

Disney’s CEO Bob Iger told the assembled crowd at his CES keynote address yesterday that the company plans to bring it’s hottest properties to ‘the virtual realm’ with the first major MMO-game being Pirates of the Caribbean due to launch later this year. [Other reports noted it would be free to play, like VMK.]

Iger told the CES audience, “We plan to build more virtual worlds like Pirates, based on a broad range of our properties, where we will invite our guests to become a part of our stories. Imagine living in Buzz and Woody’s toy universe; joining an epic adventure in the lands of Narnia; racing Lightning McQueen through Radiator Springs; sharing the superpowers of the Incredibles or entering the magic world of Cinderella and the other Disney princesses.”

SPOnG has just spoken with Sandra van Vreedendaal, Disney’s corporate communications director for Europe, who was cagier about the keynote, telling us, “Bob’s speech yesterday was more about imagining where we are going in the future. Of course, we have many IPs [Intellectual Properties] such as Toy Story, Cars, Narnia, The Incredibles. We are imagining that these things could be possible but at the moment have no firm plans.”

Well even if Iger's speech was more about "imagining" I think it bodes well for Disney and the die hard guests like ourselves. The whole Disney concept was built on "imagining" so I think we need all of that we can get right now. A CEO that has more of a traditional Disney vision seems pretty exciting to me and a welcome departure from the numbers oriented days of Eisner. Don't get me wrong, I know Iger is still most concerned with the bottom line because it's his job but at least we have some hope now.