Fortune 500 Blog Review: Disney (Part 2)

Alright. Back to the Fortune 500 Blog Project. I was halfway done with Disney yesterday. I was supposed to come back and finish up last night, but I got busy.

Anyway. Now, after I posted the previous post, I got some comments, and some emails – and it seems that I have originally misinterpreted what I have observed. I’m truly sorry and I apologise for any inconvenience caused. I was really listing the URLs that linked to a blog that could be by Disney or Disney’s employees.

Interestingly, I learnt a lot with the help from the editor of The Disney Blog, John Frost. From what he mentioned (again I shall specify that this is also based on the best of his knowledge),

For some reason The Disney Company has no ‘official’ blogs public in the net… there are enough fan blogs, so I guess they don’t have to.

John also commented that Disney used to tell their employees not to blog about their work. Considering that Disney’s entertainment is really about creating magic (and they really really do!), it is just appropriate and fair to blog about it, just in case anyone may “ruin the magic”.

Thanks John for your input. I really really do appreciate it!

Looking back, that means to me that all those URLs listed earlier are unofficial blogs. I’ve checked them individually too, and its true. They are blogs really dedicated to Disney and/or Pixar, but all of them are not affiliated to Disney or Pixar.

Just to be doubly sure, I ran a check on Technorati and Google BlogSearch today and yep, the number of fan blogs really come in the hundreds, but there isn’t any sign of any single one being the official Disney corporate blog.

So well.. I’m really wondering now where I read once before that Disney had started a corporate blog. Haha… My mistake!

Fan Blogs and Fan Sites

One very important difference about The Disney Company in this project is while they do not have an official corporate blog (some employees may blog but they may be just personal blogs), they have A LOT of fan sites and blogs, and these sites talk about everything, from their experiences in the amusement parks, to the movies and videos, to the cartoon characters, to the merchandise.

Does Disney need an official corporate blog then?

How could Disney benefit from one? I noted that J. Craig Williams posted in his blog (dated in 2005), that

…Disneyland’s new President Matt Ouimet spoke to an organization I belong to…. I asked him if Disney would consider blogging … I believe we can expect a Disney corporate blog soon.

Well, what could have happened? Maybe they went back and they realised they don’t need an official blog, because people are already blogging so much about them.

My personal opinion to this is that Disney could have one to release official news about their upcoming products and movies for example, instead of using press releases. In that way, fans could take advantage of the feeds to get the latest news on the spot.

What do you think?