Blog Mentioned in the New York Times

I guess it’s appropriate that on the day when Hurricane Wilma is playing Big Bad Wolf with the state of Florida that The Disney Blog gets mentioned in a New York Times story on ‘Brand Blogs‘. It’s a great honor to be written up in the nation’s daily and I’d like to welcome all the Times readers who stop by.

They call us Brand Blog authors Brand Evangelists. We certainly do love the Mouse and all its facets. Trust me I wouldn’t be spending the amount of time I do on this blog if I didn’t. Heck, I even moved to Orlando to be closer to Walt Disney World even if it comes with the occasional hurricane (at least we get a warning unlike those earthquakes I dealt with in Los Angeles for 11 years).

For The Walt Disney Company that love of their product has proven to be a double-edged sword. On one hand the Disney fans help spread the word and keep up interest in the product. But on the other, we’ve been known to shine a light on some of the darker sides of the Mouse’s House. If we’re happy we’ll let you know it, if we’re unhappy we’ll definitely let the public hear it. Ask Paul Pressler who heard a steady beat of negativity from some online sites during his tenure as President of Disneyland. He was a fish out of water in the entertainment industry. He’s now back in the retail business and doing fine.

I think the company has had a hard time knowing what to do with us. There are a number of Disney internet fan sites that do get invited to the themeparks, movie premiers, and other events. But they tend to be those with readership that rivals or surpasses medium sized print magazines. Just recently The Disney Blog has started to get lots of press and preview type information from the studio division (and the PR companies it has hired). At some point the whole company will need to come up with a pro-active and interactive strategy to embrace their fans instead of mostly ignoring us until they need us as they do now. (See the current Narnia campaign as an example.)

What I would really like to see is for the company division leads to start blogging regularly. They should join in the Web2.0 conversation. It’s going on with or without them. Why doesn’t Imagineering have a blog highlighting their own backyard imagineering projects? Why isn’t the ABC programming chief online crowing about their successes and giving tantalizing insight into upcoming shows? CEO Bob Iger, who has shown he is tech savvy with his iPod and direct to DVD announcements, should be leading the charge here.

So once again, if it’s your first time here thanks for dropping by, if you’re a return reader, thanks for coming back. Either way, I hope you’ll stick around as we continue to explore the many facets of the Disney Universe, its fans, and its potential.

[tags: disney, disneyana, disneyism, walt+disney, bob+iger, waltdisney, bobiger, imagineer, imagineering, nytimes, thetimes, web20, brand+blog, brand+evangilist, blog, blogs, blogging, weblog, disneyland, disneyworld ]