“The Walt Disney Co. is releasing an iPhone application that rewards users for poking through the Disney.com Web site and could one day offer exclusive bonuses for activities such as shopping at Disney Stores,” Ryan Nakishima reports for The Associated Press.
“The free app, which debuts in the iTunes app store Wednesday, offers bonus animations to users who follow clues to take cell-phone pictures of characters from movies such as ‘Up,’ ‘G-Force,’ ‘Ratatouille,’ and ‘Wall-E’ on the Web site,” Nakishima reports.
“Taking the correct picture unlocks an exclusive video and downloadable content such as frame images that can be overlaid on photos, or wallpaper images for cell phone screens,” Nakishima reports. “Disney is calling the feature ‘Click2Life,’ because it makes characters captured in photos appear to suddenly become animated in one’s hand.”
Full article here.
Sue Zeidler reports for Reuters, “For instance, a teenager may one day see a poster of an upcoming “Pirates of the Caribbean” film in a mall, snap a picture of the poster with an iPhone and then generate video content related to that picture or character.”
“Jason Davis, vice president of Disney.com, said in an interview that the media giant realized it already had a huge audience of iPhone and iPod touch users for its content on its existing mobile application on Disney.com,” Zeidler reports. “Disney.com reaches nearly 31 million unique visitors per month and said that among mobile Web sites, it ranks as the No. 1 entertainment mobile site.”
Zeidler reports, “It also has an expanding lineup of many paid applications currently available in Apple’s App Store including Toy Story Mania!, Disney Fairies Fly, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Breakspin.”
Full article here.
DIsney’s current collection of app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch via the iTunes App Store here.
::puke::
gomer37
You don’t have children!
Tried that on Megan Fox! Sadly no video. Come on guys! Or Gals- I see a market here.
hoop te effin do.
silverhawk, my three are “grown”, in their 30s, but I agree with gomer37 … :puke: ! Still, I can see the application … added value in graphics, and all. Doesn’t mean I want to see what Disney will be doing with it. Or if they will patent it.
Actually, I do have children, and they watch the Disney Channel about as much as I read Mac web sites. My comment was meant to imply how sick I am of Disney’s self promotion. Nearly every commercial on the Disney Channel is an ad for another Disney show or product! And so now we have iPhone saturation. Woohoo!
Ah! I see that NCG598 has tried to see the application as well.
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When is the app that gives me bonuses for shopping the Microsoft Store coming out?
</sarcasm>
They’re making a Pirates 4? I don’t know if that’d be a good thing or not. Forget any illogical plot lines. Everyone just wants to see Johnny stealing pirate ships from stupid guards. Chuckle.
I think pretty every parent of teen-and-younger children feels like they are single-handedly supporting the growth of Disney’s annual revenue, what with the theme parks, merchandise etc. Regardless of our genuine displeasure with the way Disney sucks money out of us, one has to admit, they are incredibly successful in their business, and without serious competition. Also, compared to what little competition there really is, Disney is really trying hard to provide safe, middle-of-the-road content for mainstream US families, so that disengaged parents can do their parenting on auto-pilot and leave good part of it to Disney. It is impressive to see a company juggle the two conflicting priorities; one, to provide this safe and reasonably educational content, the other, to grow profits and provide value for shareholders.
(disclosure: two small children, neither of them getting any significant amount of Disney content yet, except for some classics, such as Snow White, Cinderella and such).
I wish they came out with this in the summer.
I want my kids to be spending their time on homework now.
As far as Disney movies go, they destroyed their legacy when they fired all of their animators. That magic will be lost unless someone with deep pockets rehires those talented people and fosters a new generation of hand animation. Pixar is the source of most good animation (of the computer generated type) since the 1990s.
It does take a lot of money to visit a Disney park – park access fees, parking fees, travel expenses, hotel, food, etc. But it also takes a lot of resources – money and people – to keep the Disney parks running. Disney World is a small city on top with another city underground providing services.
I took my family of six to Disney World last fall. We drove 1200 miles to save some money, but stayed a full week to give us plenty of time to see everything. We had a good time and I would day that it was worth it. But we saw just about everything and I don’t plan on going back for quite a while unless there are lots of updates to draw us back.
Tips for a Disney World trip:
1) Use Fast Pass. Once you get the hang of it, it will double your ride efficiency. For instance, the log ride and Thunder Mountain Railroad are side-by-side. Get a Fast Pass for the one with the longer wait, then get in line for the other (if the wait is no more than 20-25 minutes). After finishing the first, you may be able to go directly onto the other with your Fast Pass. If not, do something else for a little while, then go back and use it. For the really popular attractions (Soarin’, Toy Story, etc.) you should get a Fast Pass first thing in the morning (and ride the attraction right away if the wait is reasonably short), then go do other things. The wait for Soarin’ rapidly increased to the range of 60 to 90 minutes after Epcot opened.
2) Take snacks and drinks with you to the parks in a backpack. You have to go through the bag inspection line, but it saves a lot of money.
3) Stay long enough to take your time. If you plan on staying a week, then you might want to get park passes for only six days to give you a day of rest.
4) The park hopper option maximizes flexibility, particularly for longer stays. We returned to the Magic Kingdom at night several times after visiting other parks during the day.
5) Get to the parks early. Take a break in the early afternoon when the crowds have grown. That way you can get a good lunch and rest for the evening. Go back in the evening (say 4:00 to 5:00 PM) when everyone else is tired and begins to leave for dinner. The Magic Kingdom started emptying out around 7:00 PM or so during our visit, and we were able to walk on many rides with minimal or no waiting time.