Disney 2.0 Part III: eXtreme Tween Socializing

I saved the last part of the Disney Online suite of social apps for the last part of my series, mainly because I knew it was going to take days for me to get any information out of my eight-year-old. She's not dumb, and knows how to milk one of her "site reviews" for all they are worth in terms of getting more computer time. However, she is the main reason that I attended the Rich Internet Experiences and the Social Graph with the Disney Touch session with Jason Vasquez, Director of Technology, Family Group - Disney Online last week at Web 2.0 Expo, so I let her take her time with discovering the recently re-launched site for tweens to teens: Disney eXtreme Digital.

Disney eXtreme Digital was recently relaunched with aggregated content, an integrated media environment, and pervasive video, that's character-driven and designed to appeal to the tween age bracket as well as a slightly older audience. Like the other online properties, Disney eXtreme Digital follows the principles of a rich, seamless connected environment, and acknowledges children as "uber-multi-taskers who want everything a click away."

My notes from the demo shown during the session express my horror at the desktop they showed:

"MY GOD the desktop is a mess. All drag and drop with tons of intformation. Scrolling, video clips, games."

Watching my daughter interact with it just continues the horror, because her personalized channels are even messier than the demo illustrated. The site is Flash-based, and allows users to add widgets to their "channel" by dragging and dropping. It includes a game economy that gives points for chatting and watching videos on the site. The points can be used for additional widgets (like a virtual iDog that dances along with the music you are playing in your channel), as well as gives users the egoboo of building their community rank.

Disney eXtreme Digital has a unique two-part social structure that encourages safety while allowing younger users a bit of freedom on the site. They can meet and socialize with other users on the site using pre-formatted chat phrases, but they can also generate a secret access code they can give to their real-life friends that allows them to chat freely without being locked down to the pre-formatted phrases. The communication here is largely contextual, especially with the pre-formatted "speed chat," because they have tons of different things to talk about on the site, and can "chat" with other users watching the same videos, or who create channels they are interested in. All the users can create member channel pages (like my daughter did) with customized content via the widgets, giving kids access to exactly what they are looking for.

Like many of the adult social sites, there is enough egoboo built in to keep kids feeling like they are acknowledged on the site, gaining status, via recognition and exposure within the community with leaderboards, etc.

My eight-year-old wasn't very enthusiastic with the previous version of the Disney Online site, but with the launch of Disney Fairies and Disney eXtreme Digital, they have her hooked, and Webkinz have taken a distant second when has the choice of filling her channel with Aly & AJ videos.

Obviously, Disney is a very family-oriented company, and they've leveraged that corporate focus in building their online properties, as I've detailed in my articles on Disney Fairies and Family.com. However, there are a lot of enterprise companies who can learn from how Disney has leveraged social media in driving an audience to their brands as well as retaining them, and I'll finish up tomorrow with what I think they should be doing. Oddly enough, HP is presenting the site "in partnership" with Disney, especially in light of how they are underselling their own user-generated content site.