Bob Iger on Disney Technology

Bob Iger, CEO of TWDC, talks about the emphasis of Disney on online technologies…

Transcript:

We’re not really embracing technology, we’re embracing consumers. Consumers are using technology in order for us to be relevant to them. We have to keep the consumer in mind and use technology to make the product either more valuable or more accessible or just better.

On the social networking side, it’s an experience online that you’re either entertaining yourself with others or participating in social networking experiences. Social networking is not just among Gen X and Gen Y, but even younger people. We saw a company called Club Penguin that was doing it quite well. It’s an online gaming world that you can do with others, and you can use your success or lack thereof in games to acquire currency and create a better life for yourself.

We bought Club Penguin and are using the creative team and technology to build other online virtual worlds and social networking experiences for other Disney franchises. We have a coterie of rich franchises, and people want to engage with or as part of them. This will allow them to be immersed even more in their franchise world.

We’re doing it with Pirates Online, and we’re going to do it with the new franchise we’re developing called Fairies. We’re also doing it with Princesses, and you can see that happening with a number of other Disney properties. We’re embracing the consumer and using technology to do so.

This is a little laboratory of a business for us. It’s a billion-dollar business that generates digital revenue at the company. It’s not just domestically but globally, we’re rolling out versions of Disney Calm in the UK, Japan, China, Australia, and France. This will not only grow revenue but also grow the brand in the association.

In three years, the 1 billion-dollar business will be much bigger. It will create a fair amount of growth for us, and some of that will be cannibalistic of current business, but a lot of it will be incremental. We’re going to reach more people in more ways, and as people spend more time engaging with entertainment on a global basis and more money, that’s a great thing for us.

Social media for us will continue to grow, but the business that will do online or digital equations will come in from many different revenue streams, such as subscription services, direct sale video on demand, micro payments, and advertising. We’ve spent a lot of time developing ways that we can enable advertisers to reach people with our product in new platforms.

Social media is not just about the 20-year-old or the 25-year-old or the 18-year-old going on Facebook or MySpace. It’s about kids using their computers and broadband-enabled computers for entertainment much more than the generations before them. We believe that the broadband-enabled computer will be a primary source of entertainment for kids in the years ahead.