Search results matching tag 'Disney'

Facebook at 300m it's the Disney of social networks

255762 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:16:00 GMT

Facebook has passed a number of milestones this year and as it passes the 300m users mark there doesn't seem to be much stopping it or much competition in its rear view mirror.

Adding 50m users in two months is really something. Earlier this year it became the fourth biggest website on the planet, snapped up FriendFeed for $50m and is making money. Although no clues on how much money it is making.

The trick that Facebook has managed to pull off so successfully is that it is all encompassing. If you look at it in terms of the family set-up, whole families are there: kids, parents, cousins, aunts and grandparents are all represented. Sports teams and other groups use it as a virtual adjunct. It's social and crosses the business divide as well (although not successfully).

It's like the Disney of social networks. Okay, so Disney would never allow you to post pictures of your friends vomiting – but hey you get the idea.

I know lots of people who have their parents as friends on Facebook. I'm not sure they always want to and occasionally live in fear that drunk status updating might draw leading questions.

But it is that achievement of universality that is the cornerstone of Facebook's success, coupled with the fact that it is a generally cleanly designed and not to cluttered website. Yes we all have irks with the changes that get introduced now and again, but by and large it works and navigating is as easy for my mum as it is for a teenage cousin.

Its growth to some degree I'm sure has been helped by the lack of solid competition. MySpace has faded in a mess of spam, clutter and lack of focus. Twitter despite its really impressive growth is not Facebook. I might spend a lot more time on Twitter, but I still use both. Twitter clearly works very differently, it serves a different purpose, and it is not universal in its appeal.

So much has already been written about why teenagers are not on Twitter (less about my mum), but that always seemed pretty obvious to me from the start. Twitter is much more about grown-up networks. Its use as a business networking tool is well established and can be awesomely effective at this (see yesterday's post about Twitter and the power of small business). That's not what Facebook does and teens generally don't have a lot of business networking to do.

What they do have is friends to connect and socialise with and Facebook works brilliantly for that. For those in work who don't need the kind of connections that those in certain industries need (communications, media, marketing, entertainment et cet) Facebook answers most of their social networking needs.

All ages are welcome which is why I guess it is making money ahead of its 2010 target as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg writes on his blog:

"We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

"Over time, Facebook will continue to be as strong as all of the connections you make. We'll continue building new and better things to make connecting with the people you care about as easy and rewarding as possible. We thank all of you for helping us reach the point where we are connecting 300 million people, and we hope to serve you and many more people in increasingly deep and innovative ways in the months and years ahead."

Congratulations its seems well deserved.

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Surely Disney can do better than this....?

902609 — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:19:00 GMT

I just received an email from Disney, addressed to "Dear Family". Not a great start is it. The email itself consists of just a couple of large images, with all the text in the image, and with the main call to action to "Play the game. Check out your personal code and see if you're a winner". This takes you through to a massively underwhelming landing page, dominated by disney images, but with a small text box suggesting you can now get your code. Usability is dreadful, design is poor and overall the experience leaves me feeling worse about Disney than when I started. I am sure they will get a strong overall response to the campaign, sufficient to claim it as a success, simply due to the strength of people's affection for Disney, but I am sure that long term it is damaging to one of the most valuable and loved brands in the world. After the campaign, I am less likely to engage with any future communications from Disney, and certainly feel less inclined to visit Disneyland. Despite my click counting towards the success of the campaign, long term, the damage is done.

"It's like a really bad Disney movie"

255762 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:45:00 GMT

An interview with Matt Damon on Sarah Palin to watch here, it's very funny. He's worried what she thinks about dinosaurs and there's the actuarial tables to think about (boy do they make for worrying reading - don't worry, I think John McCain will be just fine).

Damon is also struck how much the vice presidential republican candidate reminds him of something from a really bad Disney movie (probably called 'Slapshot Mom') where the hockey mom from Alaska becomes president and takes on the Russian president in a show of nerves and like wins...oh wait a second.

If he could get together with Sarah Silverman in a kind of reprise of their first internet hit ('I'm fucking Matt Damon') they would have a sure fire hit on their hands. Maybe something along the lines of 'OMG she's fuckin' president.

BBC's breathtaking bias against advertising

695124 — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:21:41 GMT

The Wethey Forecast seldom gets written on a Sunday. I’m normally tucked away from controversy on the golf course. But yesterday I listened to Radio 5 Live instead (for the sports coverage, which is excellent), and caught a remarkable example of the BBC’s mission to discredit advertising.

The programme, called ‘Classroom Commercials’ and presented by Rachel Burden, was broadcast at 11.30. It had been trailed all morning as a news item: ….’The Government has been looking at a major enquiry into the possible harmful effects of advertising on children’. To call the 25 minute feature a mish-mash would be generous.

It started with a reference to the junk food debate and a link to the “Put the fizz into science” promotion by Mentos. In return for repeating the Mentos and cola experiment, schools can receive £2000 of teaching equipment for chemistry lessons. Adidas contribute to physics teaching by allowing teachers to demonstrate the properties of the Predator football boot. Among the other ‘villains’ are apparently BAE and the nuclear industry, who supply teaching materials to schools. Almost unimaginable evil apparently flows from Disney helping with dance teaching in association with High School Musical, and Revlon who offered money off vouchers for a new fragrance. There were no commercials in the classroom (despite the title), but at 11.52 the programme was – hysterically – interrupted by a commercial promoting DAB radio receivers! Also the producers appeared to have forgotten that the Government itself uses advertising to talk to school age children. Kids are also allowed to listen to 5 Live and other radio stations, which don’t hesitate to mix editorial with news content – like the trail for this programme. It is hard to imagine a feature which was more contrived, more biased, more trivial, or more potty. If Peta Buscombe or Hamish Pringle are interested, I actually taped it, to make it easier to prepare a riposte to this rubbish. Meanwhile an army of thought police are presumably covering up brand names in schools all over Britain, lest the corruption children suffer in the classroom could in any way influence the way they react to the commercial world they encounter the rest of the time.