| Techtree News Staff |  Email  Print |
| Mar 13, 2007 | |
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The site http://www.family.com will go live later this week, and will remain in beta testing up until Summer, Paul Yanover, Executive Vice President of Disney Online, Walt Disney Internet Group, said.
Marking the second major Web announcement by Disney since revamp of its main Web site in January, the site is a refreshing departure from earlier promotional initiatives by the company.
A one-stop site for parents, especially mummies, the site provides nearly everthing from Internet search to user generated articles on key topics like education, food, etc. Disney eventually plans to have a 'ParentPedia' or compilation of information on at least a 1,000 topics, to be added to by users.
With 'mommy bloggers' alone accounting for 9 million unique visitors to Disney's main Web site every month, Yanover said the new site is characterized by its openness, which is exactly what the over 30,000 mothers who Disney surveyed over the past year wanted.
Disney Family features 'Family 1000' a pre-filtered list of smaller Web sites that typically do not rank high on searches using Google and Yahoo!. The list would change with users nominating their own sites.
Visitors to Disney Family will be able to upload their own profiles and make connections with other users. However, there wont be any dating allowed on the site.
And, it will be scanned for foul language, racist remarks, and other such comments that go against Disney principles.
Disney hopes to earn revenue from selling advertising and from sponsored search, text ads that would appear next to the search results.
Meanwhile, an analyst from the Massachussetts-based Forrester Research said the move is uncharacteristically good, and that to get the community right, you need to have the right mix between homegrown content and the ability to loop in people and content from outside. He said a move such as this takes guts, and is uncharacteristic for a company like Disney that typically wants to control most things.
