Category — Online

This week Disney Online invited a few Disneyland guests to the new Pixie Hollow attraction for an event celebrating the official launch of the Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow virtual world (www.PixieHollow.com). Teen celeb Debby Ryan, from Disney Channel’s Suite Life on Deck, was at the event and took a break from flying her fairy avatar around and playing games in the Pixie Hollow virtual world to sign autographs for excited fans.

Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow is an online virtual world where guests can create their own Fairy avatar to take flight alongside Tinker Bell and their Fairy friends. In the world, Fairies help bring about the change of seasons through meeting friends, playing games and collecting items in nature. It’s very easy to sign up and get going. It took me about 10 minutes to design my fairy and get going.

Learn more about Disney Fairies Pixie Hollow virtual world in the press release below the cut:

(Photos Courtesy Disney. Photo 1: Debby Ryan and Fan Enjoy Pixie Hollow Virtual World. Photo 2: Fan Meets Famous Fairies – Tinker Bell and Iridessa.)

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Disney has opened to beta play the Pixie Hollow MMORPG based on the Disney Fairies properties. If you previously created a fairy on the site, you can now log in and play that fairy. You can also start a new fairy and join in. I found the creation part easy to follow and the games were fun. Much of the game isn’t open yet, so I expect that area will get even better. But, perhaps due to the flighty nature of fairies, I found the interaction with other players to be difficult at best.

Also, we heard today that The World of Cars will open in beta later in October. Players will get Car avatars in the world created by Pixar’s movie of the same name.

Today The Walt Disney Company’s Family.com announced the launch of a new social networking site for parents called Disney Family.com Community (www.family.com/community). This site allows moms and dads across the nation to connect with other parents who have similar interests or parenting questions. Some of the many features of Disney Family.com Community are: the ability to Join Groups, post Profile Stickers and “Share It” Widgets.

The site provides a customizable online destination for moms and dads to connect with other parents through shared interests such as hobbies, age of child(ren), family setup, parenting tips, geographic location and more. The site also allows guests to interact with each other by posting comments, questions and images about parenting experiences and challenges they have in common, as well as posting reactions to content on Disney Family.com.

“Parents are increasingly sharing experiences, offering support and telling insightful stories about their families online through message boards and social networking,” said Emily Smith, Vice President of the Disney Family Group. “Disney Family.com Community creates a new online forum that combines social networking and insightful content to bring moms and dads together to make important connections while having fun.”

The community has been in beta-testing for a while now. So hopefully they have most of the quirks worked out and a good core of contributors to welcome new users. I hope to get more time to check it out myself this weekend.

Have you been waiting to try out Disney’s Pirates Of The Caribbean MMORPG, but didn’t want pay for the full version without getting a taste of it first, well batten down the hatches, cause this weekend is the perfect storm.

While PotC has always had a free version, with some abilities and equipment reserved for those who paid for a membership, this weekend (August 15 — 18) all free members will get an upgrade to the full version and be able to do any of the tasks, quests, or other pirates stuff regular paying customers can. Sort of like an open house.

Register your free account today and get ready to enjoy full access this weekend.

Disney Interactive Media = DIM. Sorry Disney, I couldn’t resist. They, of course, prefer the acronym DIMG, but that doesn’t sound out very well. DIG has been done and might have bad connotations at the Mouse House after that billion dollar debacle. So DIM it is. Maybe they work with the lights off….

But I digress.

Disney Interactive and Walt Disney Internet Group are in the process of finalizing their announced merger, that of course brings management changes. Steve Wadsworth remains the general BMOC, but:

Graham Hopper, the current EVP and GM of DIS, will continue to run Disney Interactive Studios while Paul Yanover, current EVP and GM of Disney Online in the US, will run Disney Online (DOL) globally. Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield will run virtual worlds development and operations as part of DOL. Larry Shapiro will be responsible for DIMG global strategy, business development, corp communications and legal. Also, Mark Handler is retiring as head of WDIG International and has agreed to work with the company for the next six months.

The full memo is at the Washington Post.

The El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood is the pinnacle of the Disney movie watching experience.  It is old Hollywood meets new, with restorations to both the exterior and interior, and equipped with Dolby SR-D digital sound, film and digital projectors, and 3-D capability. It is a Disney stage production.  It is excellent ice cream.  What’s not to love?

The El Capitan is located in the heart of Hollywood, right across the street from the Kodak Theatre- you know, the Academy Awards place.  It originally opened in 1926 as “Hollywood’s First Home of Spoken Drama.”  In the ten years following its opening it featured over 100 stage productions starring the likes of Will Rogers, Joan Fontaine and Clark Gable.  In 1941 Citizen Kane made its World Premiere at the El Capitan Theatre.  Basically, the place has history.

Then there is the ice cream.  Disney’s Soda Fountain and Studio Store features an old fashioned ice cream parlor (with actual soda jerks!) serving Bakersfield’s famous Dewar’s and homemade candies.  They also make a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich (Mickey-shaped, of course).

The store portion is basically a small Disney Store with DVDs and character merchandise, but with a strong emphasis, including theming, on the film currently featured in the adjacent theatre.

We saw WALL-E (my review here, and my kids’ review here).

One of the cool things about the theatre is that they overlay everything to fit the movie, and by everything I mean from the marquee to the ATM (it was space-themed, not a robot).  This is carried next door into the ice cream parlor where my son and I shared a WALL-E sundae, and by share I mean I had two bites and he went into a sugar-fueled eating frenzy (see above).

For WALL-E the El Capitan teamed with NASA and JPL.  The lobby was decorated in models and information regarding various satellites, robotics, and other milestones of space exploration.  It was out of this world (sorry, I couldn’t resist).  WALL-E runs through August 27th.

Prior to WALL-E there was a live stage show that incorporated scenes from classic Disney/Pixar movies into dance numbers featuring the characters from the corresponding films.  The show is called “Disney’s Flight of Fantasy” and the crowd went wild.

My family and I had a blast and I can’t recommend the experience enough.  If you’re visiting for a Disneyland Resort vacation you should really consider adding this to your itinerary, and if you’re local you’ll appreciate this: clean bathrooms in Hollywood.  That’s the Disney touch.

Upcoming shows include Sleeping Beauty, TinkerBell, Beverly Hills Chihuahua (Chihuahua!), The Nightmare Before Christmas (3-D), High School Musical 3: Senior Year, and Bolt (3-D).

You can call 1-800-DISNEY6 or visit www.elcapitantickets.com for tickets and information.

A few months ago when Disney.com received it’s big makeover, managers were candid about the fact that this was largely an exploratory phase of the website. They wanted to see what worked, what didn’t, what they could do better, and what users were drawn to. They’ve had some time to check things out and now their ready to start making some changes.

What will those changes be? Well the NY Times says that for one thing, Disney will be changing the look and feel to be much more friendly to the websites younger users. There will be more free video (think YouTube), more games, and even some mobile applications.

Myself, I was never particularly won over by either the old or new design. For me Disney.com has always been a utility site. I go there when I need an answer to a question, a movie or tv show website, or occasionally to see some original content. So, I’ll reserve judgment until I see the new changes, but from what I hear it sounds like they’re leaving users like me behind for people who see Disney.com as an entertainment channel.

Camp Rock’s Disney Channel premier beat High School Musical 1 for eyeballs, but failed to match the explosive debut of HSM2. I’m pretty sure Disney doesn’t care, 8.9 million eyeballs for a cable television is still pretty amazing.

Don’t forget that beginning today Disney.com will stream the Disney Channel Original Movie “Camp Rock” Disney.com/CampRock. The Disney.com “Camp Rock” online event will include unique interactive content so fans can chat and play games while watching. Fans can also watch in a full screen experience featuring “Camp Rock” trivia and an interactive map of the camp.

Visit www.Disney.com/CampRock then come back and let us know what you think of the experience. For instance, what was your favorite song from the movie?

Update: 9pm 6/23 - Apparently Disney.com is having problems handling the load of fans flocking to see Camp Rock streaming on the site.

An internal email sent from Disney CEO Bob Iger reveals that The Walt Disney Compnay will be merging its digital media group with its video gaming division to create a new unit called Disney Interactive Media Group. Walt Disney Internet Group currently manages Club Penguin and Disney.com among others. While Disney Interactive Studios mostly makes video games for Disney brands. Although they both do quite a bit more than that and there is often considerable confusion about exactly what they do.

I’ve been waiting for this move to happen for a long time. There is a ton of potential cost savings here, not to mention making it easier for one hand to know what the other is doing. It also makes sense to have one reporting structure for this group since so much of Bob Iger’s strategy for the future depends on being able to leverage these technologies and media to tell quality Disney stories.

My one complaint, DIMG isn’t as fun an acronym as WDIG. Just change the “I” from Internet to Interactive and there you go. The media is implied.

(via AllThingsD and CNNmoney)

Author and social media strategist Shel Israel gazes into the crystal ball and sees a future populated by children who learned everything they needed to know about how to interact online from a Disney owned Social Network or Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG).
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