Well, dpb, your post did reveal something good. Even though the pretense of Eisner actually reading the email directed to him was exposed, I got something from the Investor Relations site.
If you recall, earlier in the week, I thought I saw CNBC say something about Eisner presenting to Goldman Sachs on Tuesday. Well, under "Presentations" at the Investor Relations site was the full text of his presentation. DIG was one of the first things he discussed. Here's that excerpt:
"[VIDEO – the WDIG “cylinder”]
There is a fifth cylinder that, to some extent, is still being tooled in our machine shop – and that is the Walt Disney Internet Group, which is a separately traded stock that includes all of our Internet holdings.
We are sometimes frustrated by the fact that the market does not yet seem to appreciate the tremendous strength of our Internet holdings. It reminds me of a Wall Street Journal cartoon that showed a secretary saying to her boss: “I know you want me
to correct your spelling and punctuation, but what about your misconceptions?”
Like all Internet enterprises, the Walt Disney Internet Group is still evolving. But, unlike many Internet businesses, ours is based on solid assets that should help to power this fifth cylinder to high performance down the road.
[SLIDE – DIG assets]
Here you can see all of the components of the Walt Disney Internet Group. They range from Disney.com to ABC.com to ESPN.com to ABCNews.com to Family.com. Many of these sites are leaders in their categories, helping to drive the strong traffic of our Internet holdings.
Just as our corporate assets give us an enormous advantage in traditional realms of commerce, so do they in the Internet. For instance, there is Enhanced TV, which has made us a “first mover” in the critical area of Internet/television convergence. It is now a regular feature of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and “Monday Night Football,” and special event shows such as the Oscars and the Emmy’s. Enhanced TV allows viewers to
enrich the TV experience by being a real participant online with what’s going on in the program.
Soon to come is our auction site with eBay, which will allow us to go straight to the legions of Disneyana fans and, in so doing, will enable us to empty out some of our corporate attics.
Then there is the initiative we just officially launched yesterday – or, I should say, “re-launched” – and that is the new GO.com Web site.
The Internet is the land of the learning curve, where we initiate and adapt and adapt and initiate. Through it all, we remain mindful of Hofstadter’s Law. This is an axiom that was devised by Douglas Hofstadter, professor of computer science at the
University of Oregon. It goes like this: “Software development always takes longer than you think … even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.”
Well, despite Hofstadter’s Law, we have made tremendous progress with GO.com and have now refined it into a site that plays more directly to the entertainment, recreation and lifestyle strengths of our company. The site is in its beta test and can be
accessed at www.beta.go.com. I urge you to go check it out … and especially spend some time using the search engine. I think you will find that it offers some remarkable new attributes that almost magically bring up the direct and related results that you’re looking for.
The search engine also offers an organic way to introduce relevant advertising into the search process …which, over time, should make possible some meaningful money-making opportunities.During the next few months, we will be concentrating on getting customer feedback and optimizing the site. Then we will undertake a major advertising campaign. We believe that, as more and more users experience the site, it
will steadily gain in popularity, traffic, revenues and, yes, profits.
We do have an enormous advantage in being able to advertise our Internet sites on our traditional media. And we do that successfully with our other vertical sites.Just as soon as the new GO.com is unconditionally, unrelentingly, unquestionably fantastic will we then turn on our marketing power.
In many ways, today’s Internet environment is reminiscent of the early days of our company. Walt and Roy achieved moderate success experimenting with silent cartoon shorts. “Moderate” is my word. Walt would have seen it differently. Then came what we today would call a “killer ap” – in this case, synchronized sound. The Disney Studios produced the first sound cartoon, starring Mickey Mouse, and overnight, Disney became a household name.
The Internet is still in its infancy, but we are getting closer to the day when it will be transformed into a true entertainment medium … and Disney will once again be poised on the cutting edge – and still helping us out will be Mickey Mouse."
I'm so thrilled, I just figured out how to copy from a pdf format! I'm also thrilled that these message boards can handle a long post. Anyway, this would appear to confirm the Variety article that said that marketing would start in January. It looks like we're in beta for the remainder of the year.
Damnitall, they're such friggin' teases. Just as we're talking about how much longer should we hold out as investors, they go and dangle that marketing muscle carrot in front of us, again!
Let's just say our lover is constantly bringing us to the edge of climax, except we're not getting the type of screwing we deserve.
Now, pardon me, but I think I've just taken our little analogy to the brink of gutterdom. I'll just blush, giggle and leave it alone for now.
Meme
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