Disney has joined the ever growing list social networking destinations with the launch of Disney Xtreme Digital, targeted directly at Disney’s core market of pre-teens.
The new service, said perhaps lazily by some outlets as being a MySpace clone, comes complete with user generated profile pages that leverage the wealth of Disney’s pre-teen friendly content in terms of allowing customization, as well as offering the standard competitions, video, music, games and networking features. Naturally Disney has also included strong parental controls, that include the ability to limit access access to the various features on the site, including chat.
The service currently opens in beta, with users restricted to the United States only.
The pre-teen marketplace has been ignored to date by most existing social networking sites, the litany of potential, and actual legal issues regarding children under 14 keeping many away. For that very reason though, it’s an online demographic that lacks a lot of serious competition, and holds a wealth of potential for Disney in further expanding the Disney brand online.
From a parents perspective though, I couldn’t help but think that the entire service was nothing more than a constant stream of advertisements for Disney movies and related products. Parents who worry about their children being exposed to marketing messages are not going to like Disney XD.
One can only hope that they don’t mix the content up on the new service, as it appears as if they’ve done recently by exposing children to porn on Comcast.
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Now tell me again why does a pre-teen need a social network?
I see this a great vehicle to promote Disney’s other products, movies, TV show’s etc. I don’t see the blanant advertising like I do on myspace.
So I dont see it being a huge revenue generator like myspace.
I’m so glad my kids are into PBSKIDS and LEGO.com
I think this is great and makes perfect sense! Kids are socially networking at earlier ages all the time. I think it is a great, safe learning tool for kids to get started. Social networking isn’t going anywhere (sorry!), let’s start teaching our kids how to use it safely.
Its going to come to a point where everyone and their cousin have a social network. Disney does have an entry here because of the children’s programing and marketing power they have behind their name. I’m not too sure about the pre-teen thing though, that may be a stretch.
I don’t get upset with compan ies much but Disney, as it is a children focused company, has a higher obligation to protect youngsters.
It took me half a second to think of what their users, our kids, will type.
http://extremedigital.com/ - goes to a porn site, and has been for a while.
Now how smart is that?!
Yeah, I doubt Xtreme Pre-Teens is what any parent is looking for for their kids.
I’m calling DOA on this one.
Pre-teens will be quickly exposed to porn if they are good spellers since the correct spelling is Extreme (not Xtreme) and ExtremeDigital.com is a very bad porn site.
Can you imagine how often the kids will end up at porn because they know how to spell?
Whoever decided on this name needs to be fired and a new domain name selected.
Yes Kewtr, I agree with you.
I can’t speak for Disney, but I am a Disney web developer. No, I didn’t work on (or even know of) this site (I work for a different area of Disney Internet Group). I can say, though, that I think it’s a great idea. Parents who want their kids to be able to add their friends and get involved with technology at a young age will cherish this web site. At Disney, we’re very aware that our brand is targetted towards children.
If you take a look at Virtual Magic Kingdom, for example, we actually have a dictionary in place of words that kids are *allowed* to say. We take the white-list approach. It’s a bit more difficult to communicate, and of course kids find creative ways around the filter, but all in all it’s a decent, albeit bottled, experience.
“xtreme” is just marketing slang. It’s not like we’ll be advertising “Xtreme Digital dot com!” or anything. Kids will find it on the Disney sites (or parents will) and bookmark it.
And I very very seriously doubt DOA… there’s a very large market for this if you think about it. There are parents out there who watch what their kids do.
Again, a disclaimer… I don’t represent Disney at all… just providing a little insight. And I misspelled “targeted”.
Hey mike… your samurai warrior is weak…
Duncan got handful skills. I’m taking your old idol and put new journalist idol.
This is DOA. Once you go to the site it makes two key mistakes:
1. It says BETA - 11 year olds have no clue what BETA means. Did they do any usability studies at all?
2. There is a demo video - my attention span is about 1.2 seconds. An 11 year old’s attention span is even shorter. No one wants to wait to get into it. Let the video be on the side or an optional pop-up but don’t make it required.
This brings up the really big question - when can we reasonably expect C-SPAN to launch it’s social network for high school debate geeks? I can imagine a play on local search based on a mashup of Google Maps (to see where your favorite politician is), Twitter (so your favorite politician can microblog and tell you what they ate for lunch), Loopt (because we all know Paul Graham has to be involved somehow), and Friendster (because everyone loves a dying social network). It will be quite brilliant and of course tie in lifecasting from C-SPAN where you can watch Condi Rice take her hat cam all over Afghanistan as she meets with warlords and tells them about how Web 2.0 mashups are the next big thing in spreading American values worldwide.
““xtreme” is just marketing slang. It’s not like we’ll be advertising “Xtreme Digital dot com!” or anything. Kids will find it on the Disney sites (or parents will) and bookmark it.”
Jimmy,
People, including kids, type brands plus extension into the brwoser bar. The brand here is “Xtreme Digital” and they will type both XtremeDigital.com and ExtremeDigital.com into the browser bar, wether Disney promotes the correct domain or not.
This is wrong and need to be changed ASAP. I hope the media will be all over it soon, not for the sake of me being right about it, but for the sake of youngsters worldwide.
I lub duncanriley longtime.
Hey, just to clarify, the page is pretty cool really. I think it’s a cool idea. But there are few examples of more unfortunate namings out there.
And for the record, it is being marketed as ‘xtreme’. “Experience the all new Disney Xtreme Digital”. That is specifically why I made the DOA comment.
I mean aside from the domain issues noted above, just pretend ‘xtreme digital’ becomes what this service is known as, even to a few kids. Just search on that, and guess if you’ll be happy if your kid clicks on the first result. Disney’s down number 3 or so, because they are marketing as ‘xtreme digital’ just like the adult Shockwave site of the same name.
That’s an absolute ton of money down the drain already. There’s no way around this one, it needs cancelled or renamed. Someone does need firing.
I agree with others who say it’s a poor name. My first instinct with the name was “it sounds porn-ish.” Are pre-teens really into “extreme” things anyway? Wouldn’t “Disney’s Playland,” or something of that nature, be a better choice?
Anyway, I just wanted to say that the design, while pretty, looks like a cluttered, confusing mess. I wonder how much research went into this project.
I can’t check it because its homepage returns a message that is not available to guests from outside the U.S. I agree that a lot of videos or flash ads makes the site cluttered. That’s pointed out by our users who prefer our kids site vs the others because of no flash ads and video.
The dumbing down of America starts earlier and earlier it seems. Constant Disney product pimping…ughh.
Perhaps there is a market for well-monitored preteen social networking, I just wish it came from elsewhere. As someone mentioned, PBSKIDS and LEGO.com are very nice though.
Social networking sites for pre-teens tends to work out great, since all of them are a lot into chat and messagging, and want to make “friends” all over the web.
I’m a developer and worked for the site http://www.fanta.com.ar which is a social networking for kids (originally) from 14 to 17.. but the site also became popular among 12-14 ages aswell.
Even with the (sometimes) slow download rates, and some communication issues, the number of members is ever-growing.
Take in account that the site is not for US market (so age interests might vary)
Good thing my kids were in school when that porn was exposed in Disney Channel in Comcast the other day. Comcast did admit though that it was their mistake and not Disney.
Comcast was responsible for the porn snafu not Disney. Appears that you didn’t follow the link. I expect the information to be credible at TechCrunch, Please correct your reference!
Wow. Disney is brave to take on the legal hurdles of this field. What happens after the first child molester is discovered on Disney’s new network?
Oh hey, it’s the prototype for the _Idiocracy_ portal. Get em started young.
I’m going to get in on a positive - note
- Its better than myspace for the pre-teens.
- some kids are going to join a network; atleast this is now an option.
- and again atleast the advertisments; are targeted for little kids, not a “fart button” or “Hot singles in yoru area”
- think about the positives, and not a reason to start hating anything posted on TC
for those of you who aren’t aware of the potential size of this market.. do some basic research.
i’m no longer amazed when people start spouting off on issues that they have little knowledge of. the market for kids is huge… i repeat, huge…
a good chunk of advertising is rightly/wrongly directed towards kids (at least here in the us). part of this is a direct correlation to the fact that parents want to be friends to their kids, as opposed to dealing with the conflicts that arise when you raise kids. the result is that parents give in to kids wants/desires…
hell, i know parents who’ve given their 10 year old, cell phones/playstations/access to the computer (unmonitored)/private school/etc…
marketers/advertisers know/recognize this, and play to these feelings..
on another point, check out http://www.clubpenguin.com. the site is essentially a play on the virtual world approach, but it’s geared towards kids. the really interesting approach, is that kids spend more time (per visit) on the site, than adults do on myspace/facebook…
this ultimately translates into $$$ for the operator of the site…
i’m not worried about predators on disney.. the early entrants into this area are going to make bank if they implement correctly!!
peace
The UI looks terrible. The different modules look chunky and that blue color is threathening. If their target market is pre-teens, wonder what’s the average age of the creative and dev teams that put together the site?!
The New York Times recently did a story on other pre-teen social networks entitled: My Daughter, the Burger-Flipping Penguin at this url: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05.....mp;emc=rss
@Sahar Sarid
lol, that’s awesome
Parents white-list the domain names their kids may visit. Relax with all this DOA babble.
Just posted a piece warning parents about the URL “oops” potential…in an editorial commentary on Shaping Youth’s site here: http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=421
i am
When Walt Disney puts out almost 90% witchcraft and actual occult mind control movies and television shows with the intent to have control over our minds and even some mainstream Christians defend Disney as wholesome right from the very first Fantasia film. There isn’t anything wholesome about placing subliminal messages in CHILD movies such as the words SEX in the blasphemous Lion King. We know who the REAL Lion King of Judah is. And show an actual pornography photo of a woman’s breasts admittedly by Disney in two-three frames of the cartoon movie The rescuers from 1977. And have the Preacher of the little mermaid get an erection while he’s marrying them or having the cartoon whore from Who Framed Rodger rabbit spread her legs with a very graphic 4-5 frames of lower frontal nudity like a penthouse magazine (that is after shes been a tease through out the entire movie) and have the prince in the Aladdin say all good teenagers take off your clothes. its no wonder that sex is a gigantic part of everyones mindsets these days. We’re smacked it to us without our even knowing it. being programmed like perfect little slaves that society has become. Oh, but disney wouldnt do thaaaat. Theyre nice peeeopllle. Walts head cryogenically frozen until science can catch up and unfreeze his brain so he can speak again. he’ll probably be around in 10 years or so making more movies and having more mind controll-ED slaves. some of you im sure. or worse, your kids.
Nothing wrong with that and WE SHOULD trust Disney. They really really do care! Gimme a break you dumbed down, SSRI med taking zombie drugged, fluoride drinking, over taxed for your methane flatulence and exhale slaves. You probably dont even have a clue what any of this last sentance means. that PROVES how much lower your IQ is from all that fluoride. Like the good hitlerians were. You SHOULD be blind if you can’t see the truth behind the smoke and mirrors. o p e n y o u r e y e s PPL!
But your kids deserve much better. much better!
The end.
Just remeber this. once a child sees Porn or anything of that magnitude for the first time… there is NO way of UNseeing it. you dont forget it. you Only WANT TO KNOW MORE. which is the whole point of disney NOT playing xxx on kids tv network. it wasnt disneys idea, it was some brainless idiot’s who didnt know how to run master control? ooookaay. folks, you cant make mistakes like that in broadcasting these days. that was the old days. anything like this is 100% intentional.