Disney is loosening up and taking another step toward lessening control of their Web sites. This time they're going after the "Mommy" market with a new site called Disney Family.
This site, in contrast to past projects, is geared to be a place where parents, primarily mothers, will be able to go and find specific answers to questions from education to food. They plan on introducing a "ParentPedia," which will contain information on 1,000 topics which can than be enlarged by users ... basically a type of Wiki.
Many of the answers will be user-generated with the site providing search and the tools to be able to access or add to it.
The site is being created in response to 30,000 mothers that Disney surveyed during the past year who said that the openness of a site plus trusted content that Disney vouches for is what they wanted.
I like this because of the blending of user-generated content and information that is vouched for. The two give people the opportunity to contribute while also reading content that can be relied on to be accurate - something not offered too much around the Web.
Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research also likes it saying, "This is uncharacteristically good. To get community right, you need to have the right mix between homegrown content plus the ability to loop in people and content from outside. That takes guts because you don't really know what users are going to say. It's uncharacteristic for a company that wants to control things as much as Disney."
A site will also be watched for foul language and other comments that may go against the general site rules - another feature that a family site has to have.
Disney will monetize the site through sponsored search and selling advertising. It is set to go live later in the week at http://www.family.com and stay in "beta" until sometime this summer.
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