Morphed mouse pad: with $500 million in revenue at stake, revamped Web site is more than kid stuff.

WALT Disney Co. has finally delivered its much-ballyhooed Web site revamp, two weeks later than promised during a glitzy Las Vegas rollout last month.

The revamped site was anticipated as one of the most visible elements of Chief Executive Bob Iger's digital vision for the entertainment giant. It is no quantum leap in terms of digital innovation, but its flash video-heavy design is a marked improvement over the outdated former site.

"The site is a very important factor going forward--they have to move from the mundane to exciting but it won't happen overnight. It'll take awhile to get it going and will take even longer for people to learn how to use it," said Dennis McAlpine, an analyst with McAlpine and Associates LLC. "It was critical; if they didn't do it then they fall behind."

All the online bells and whistles are more than kids' play: The company generated more than $500 million in Web revenues across all its properties last year.

Iger and Disney Internet Group Executive Vice-President Paul Yanover previewed the site at last month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and promised a mid-January debut. Disney wouldn't comment on the delay, but industry insiders thought that the company took extra time for fine tuning.

The old site was built on a representation of Disney as a physical place, with a map of different geographic areas, like islands, for users to visit and had a lot of loosely organized content. In crafting the new look and customizable navigation, Yanover said that the development team watched current trends.

As an example, he pointed out that kids are very comfortable in multitasking in the digital environment. That led to the inclusion of Disney Xtreme Digital, known as Disney XD, an area of the new site geared toward the younger set. It lets users perform multiple functions at once, like simultaneously playing games, chatting online and watching TV shows.

"There is definitely a difference in the way kids and adults function online, and that drives a lot of the evolution," Yanover said.

Most company watchers agreed that the Web site revamp was essentially the lowest-hanging fruit, one of the easiest things for Disney to spruce up given its recent digital-media mandate.

"If you look at the old site, it's nothing special; nothing you haven't seen before," said atexis Bleichroeder analyst Alan Gould. "They didn't have to go and invent a new property; it was already there with an audience."

Still, the former iteration of Disney's online presence was highly visible and massively popular, drawing more than 25 million visitors a month as the top-ranked entertainment property online for kids and families. The DisneyChannel.com page streamed nearly 55 million TV programs between June and November.

The popularity of Internet video was a big part of the overhaul.

"There is a lot of acceptance and comfort with video these days," Yanover said. "Three or four years ago wouldn't have been the case; we wouldn't have the center of the homepage be video-based."

The ability to leverage its movie franchises such as "Cars" or "Pirates of the Caribbean" is critical, too. Earlier this month, the company reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $1.7 billion, or 79 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 30, compared with $734 million, or 37 cents per share, in the same period last year. That performance was driven largely by strong DVD sales, the sort of peripheral revenue stream that benefits most from cross promotion.

Users weigh in

The home page shows excellent use of brand. The site also features simple and easy to use navigation, which keeps it user-friendly, an important feature considering that the site caters to a younger demographic while still maintaining functionality for parents. The rich media videos on the site are beautifully produced and packaged well. Overall, the web development team at Disney's Internet Group did a great job building a glossy, content-rich site that can be the hub of a ton of data yet still maintains a streamlined format that's easy to use."

James Revell

Vice President of Interactive WPT Enterprises Inc.

The site is very video driven; clearly the impact of YouTube hasn't escaped the people at Disney. It is a cleaner, more content-driven site compared to the previous design. The new design successfully adds the high tech "oomph" to the site. Even though the site is designed to promote Disney characters and products, the pages look like they are plastered with advertisements, even if it is their own. Compared to the previous site, it has less feel of a "Magic Kingdom" and more of a "Magic Shopping Mall."

David Ra

Network Engineer Cal Net Technology Group

I really like the replacements made on Disney.com. I loved the "Suite Life of Zack and Cody" and "Hannah Montana" games. The rest of the games I really didn't care for. I also really liked the Web page of Disney.com. It is very colorful, friendly and looks happy, and it makes cool sounds when you point the cursor on the different kind of games they have. It was a lot of fun playing them and they are not complicated.

Kelli Jackson

Student

Age 9