Disney yet to refresh website as promised
Walt Disney Co.’s commitment of late to new technology has boosted the company’s stock and earned Chief Executive Robert Iger a reputation as a far-seeing leader in a hidebound industry.
Now for the downside.
At his keynote speech during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, Iger’s big splash was the overhaul of the stodgy and outdated Disney.com.
Iger promised that by late January, the world would see an innovative site that visitors could customize in myriad ways. The preview he gave showed supervised online chatting, immersive multiplayer games and content that adapted to the age of the visitor.
But as of Monday, the Burbank-based company’s site had still not been updated. A blurb in the middle of the page declared: “Look for the new Disney.com, coming soon!”
For a company used to releasing movies and television shows on strict deadlines, it was an unwelcome introduction to the over-promising, under-delivering world of high technology, where a week’s delay is trivial.
Microsoft Corp.’s new Vista operating system, after all, shipped more than two years after its promised arrival date. And Yahoo Inc.’s revamped system for placing ads near Web searches was re-rescheduled to go into effect Monday, two months after it was due.
“If it’s a dramatic change, those dates are usually missed,” said veteran technology pundit Rob Enderle. Even then, he said, it’s unusual to miss a date given out just weeks earlier.
One possible source of last-minute delay, Enderle speculated, was the initial Jan. 29 presentation to Disney’s board of directors, which now includes the famously critical Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs.
“Jobs typically will reject anything the first time around. That’s how he marks his territory,” Enderle said. “He even sends his food back three times.”
Iger said in a Jan. 30 interview with the Financial Times that after the board presentation, Jobs had given “quite valuable” feedback.
Disney spokesman John Spelich declined to elaborate -- or for that matter acknowledge a delay.
“We’re launching imminently,” Spelich said, “and we’re well within the time frame we envisioned when we made the reveal” in Las Vegas.