NYTimes: Disney's internet chief forced out.

[dpic]

Disney’s Internet Chief Resigns

By BROOKS BARNES The Walt Disney Company’s top Internet executive, Steve Wadsworth, resigned late Thursday following a difficult tenure in which the media giant’s Web strategy underwent repeated retrenchments.
Mr. Wadsworth, whose title was president of the Disney Interactive Media Group, announced his resignation in a late-night email to his staff. “I have been thinking about this for quite some time, and while it is difficult to leave a great company, an exciting business and a wonderful group of people, my desire and excitement to pursue other opportunities is too great to ignore,” the note said.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/disneys-internet-chief-resigns/?pagemode=print

 

[DiRTyBuNNy]

I wonder how much it would take to hire Corey to take over their Internet division because they need someone with a clue.

--DB

 

[elemusing]

YES!!! This means that *maybe* their internet presence will improve. I have always been amazed at how a company as huge as Disney could have websites that don't work correctly most of the time. Sure, everyone has glitches occasionally, but we all know how legendary the problems on the Disney sites are.

 

[DWGal210]

Good!

It has always mystified me that this GIANT company, making so many good business decisions, cannot seem to make a functioning website. Makes no sense.

 

[AJRitz]

The question now is whether it was really Wadsworth who was the problem, or whether Wadsworth was fighting an uphill battle against other entrenched interests within the corporation. We'll just have to wait and see.

Internet at Disney is a behemoth. They have to deal with a diverse array of core sites - from ESPN to WDW to DL to DL Paris/Tokyo/Hong Kong to Disney Stores. Not to mention the "offshoot" sites - DisneyMovieClub, Family Fun, etc. Integrating all of that takes someone who can both get the folks in charge of all of those business lines to play nicely together AND who understands the technology well enough to make the big decisions that make the tech stuff all work.

Then, you have to layer on the whole social media aspect - blogging, twitter, facebook. All of those disparate parts need to work together. Right now, Disney can't seem to put it all together. They finally have a blog presence, but once it asks for feedback it rarely responds meaningfully to that feedback. There are the twitter accounts, but they mostly just tweet out new blog posts (and then link to dense, flash-based, web pages that won't even load on most mobile devices). Facebook is also not a unique offering - mostly just a collection of blog posts and tweets.

 

[BriarRosie]

I know the friends who played Virtual Magic Kingdom with me will probably be overjoyed by this news.

A couple years ago we were all very unhappy that Disney dropped the ball on a huge opportunity with it. It was a community of people like the DIS. And Disney could have made money hand over fist if they marketed it properly. They could have sold in-game merchandise like many other MMORPGs do.

But I digress. Hopefully they'll get an Internet team that can fix the mistakes of the past. I won't hold my breath.

 

[999ghostslover]

I'm hardly a pro on this subject matter but is it the go network that they insist on using? I have always thought that network is the major problem. They need to make a serious internet partnership. Imagine a disney/apple or disney/google experience. It would be phenomenal.
And I have always thought they went way too far with style and not enough with content. I want to see lots of resort pics like here or all ears. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just give me the info.
But I will say my daughter loves the site. She loves the playhouse disney games, and now more so the disney channel games. Those are all fairly fast-loading lots of flash or java applications built into the site.

 

[DWGal210]

AHRitz, those are very good points. You do wonder if he got frustrated fighting for changes.

 

[OKW Lover]

You would have thought that a company who's largest single stockholder is Steve Jobs would have a clue as to how to create a website that people can actually use.

 

[doconeill]

I know a company that could monitor/manage their web sites to make sure they are working... I could write a plugin that links to the DIS to detect when people are complaining


I've been telling the sales guy he needs to find a contact at Disney...

 

[DiRTyBuNNy]

You would have thought that a company who's largest single stockholder is Steve Jobs would have a clue as to how to create a website that people can actually use.

I wouldn't want to put Steve Jobs in charge...that's just asking for a meltdown..

--DB

 

[yitbos96bb]

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/disneys-internet-chief-resigns/?pagemode=print

Good Riddance... Disney has one of the worst online presences I have ever seen. Too much sizzle, not enough steak... badly written, very lazy creation. The systems run incredibly slow.... I hope whomever designed the online dining and room reservation systems are shown the door as well.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I wonder how much it would take to hire Corey to take over their Internet division because they need someone with a clue.

--DB

I'll have to disagree. Corey doesn't have the experience to run the Internet division of Disney. It's not a technical job, rather a vision/strategy job. You need someone experienced with web strategy for Fortune 50 companies... For example, try to get a GOOGLE, Facebook, Amazon or Ebay higher up whose is strongly involved in strategy and vision.

That's not to diminish Corey's work. He does an excellent job... Now I don't know his programming and design chops... how much he develops the site, vs administrating it (yes they are 2 VERY different things)... assuming he has done most of the development, then a position for him in this scenario is as a senior designer... someone to help with the technical aspects. But this type of position is a high pressure strategic one and without the experience and pedigree, you'd sink very fast.

 

[yitbos96bb]

You would have thought that a company who's largest single stockholder is Steve Jobs would have a clue as to how to create a website that people can actually use.

Internet Chief has NOTHING to do with the actual creation of a website. The position is a strategic planning and vision position creating and positioning Disney's internet strategy and presence.

But yes, the IC should have known how to HIRE someone who could hire should to create a good site.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I know the friends who played Virtual Magic Kingdom with me will probably be overjoyed by this news.

A couple years ago we were all very unhappy that Disney dropped the ball on a huge opportunity with it. It was a community of people like the DIS. And Disney could have made money hand over fist if they marketed it properly. They could have sold in-game merchandise like many other MMORPGs do.

But I digress. Hopefully they'll get an Internet team that can fix the mistakes of the past. I won't hold my breath.

Or charged a monthly fee for access. Between the two, they could have profited from VMK. One in a long line of stupid decisions made by Disney.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I wouldn't want to put Steve Jobs in charge...that's just asking for a meltdown..

--DB

No one with an IQ above 50 would suggest this... he's a little too busy running Apple and turning it into the biggest tech company in the world.