The Disney Twitterverse

For many years Disney fans on Spaceship Earth have gathered on the Internet. Fans most commonly gather at Disney vacation planning sites and associated message boards. In 2004, I ventured onto my first discussion board at at site called INTERCOT. Billed as the "Internet Community of Tomorrow", fans discuss the Disney theme parks, restaurants, resorts and other topics. I stayed only on INTERCOT until about a year ago; I was searching Google for Disney photography tips since I had just purchased a new digital SLR camera. In my search I came across the DISBoards and its associated planning site wdwinfo.com, better known as The DIS. Searching for photography information opened my eyes to a whole new world of Disney fandom. INTERCOT doesn't allow any pictures or external links on their forums, so DISBoards was a Disney message board that looked more like forums for other topics I enjoy. At first I stayed in the Photography Board since it was the whole reason for being on DISBoards, but soon I was all over the entire forum. From here, I learned of the large Disney photography community on Flickr and The Magic in Pixels (TMiP). I also started listening to some podcasts including The DIS Unplugged and Lou Mongello's WDW Radio.

Leading up to last year's trip to Walt Disney World, I started dabbling in Twitter. For a while, I didn't quite get it. Why do I want to send 140 character messages to people? What good is this? Why should I use this instead of Facebook? The realization didn't come for a while, even after I set up scottinwdw originally for the purposes of live-tweeting from Disney World (the easiest way to see these early tweets is to read my trip report on DISBoards because I put them all into my report and Twitter doesn't make it easy to go back and read them).

I started noticing my Twitter followers as well as the people I follow came weren't all from the same discussion board. The group that started appearing on Twitter was more diverse than any one forum. Quick opinions from people on a hot topic as the news came out. Links to all sorts of websites, blogs and podcasts could be found. Disney fans who will talk about anything, including technology, the latest Disney home video release, or Disney Parks confessions (search #confessfriday on Twitter to read some of those). Twitter, it turns out, is poised to be the great Disney fan uniter that brings the fans out of the message board "silos" and onto one huge network.

Has The Walt Disney Company noticed? Among others, @DisneyParks, @WaltDisneyWorld, @Disneyland, and @DisneyD23 are all official Disney Twitter accounts. Many times, these accounts link back to official blog entries with company news, information, or something just for fun. They also poll the Twitter population and sometimes re-tweet the best answers. These official Twitter accounts show that someone is listening at Disney. Whether or not the opinions sent to these Twitter accounts reach someone of influence is unknown, but it's a step in the right direction for customer relations.

A Twitter post just wouldn't be complete without mentioning a few of my favorites on Twitter. @kidanikatie's (Katie Siloac) thedvclife featured my Premier Passport article recently and has become one of my favorite blogs even though I'm not a DVC member (but I have thought about it). @zannaland (Suzannah DiMarzio) and her site Zanna Land always have interesting things to read about Disney Parks. @cosmicreid (Chris Reid) hosts Cosmic Reid's Starlight Café on @beourguestmike's (Mike Rahlmann of the Be Our Guest Podcast) Magical Mouse Radio. Even though he's only had two shows so far, it's a great thing to listen to on a Monday around lunchtime. Last but not least, @progresscityusa (Michael Crawford) can be found thanking the Phonecians on Twitter and at Progress City, USA.

Epcot - Squandering Brand Identity Since 1994

In 1994, the first Disney theme park name change took place. EPCOT Center, the second Walt Disney World gate changed its name to Epcot '94. The name changed a second time in 1995 to Epcot '95. Fortunately, Disney decided to at least forego the annual change in 1996 and simply call the park Epcot. However, the change from EPCOT Center to Epcot represented a significant switch in the park's identity, especially in Future World.

When EPCOT Center opened, Future World had a cohesive vision: to look at life in the 21st century. Each monolithic pavilion had its own circular logo and examined one segment of life in the future. When Horizons opened one year after the rest of the park, it became the embodiment of Future World's theme. Horizons took the themes of all the Future World pavilions and combined them into a possible future. However, as the future began to catch up with EPCOT Center's early 1980s view, Disney and the pavilion sponsors were not as interested in updating the pavilions to adapt to the changing times.

Instead, we began to see the original EPCOT Center pavilions close down. Horizons was the first to close in 1993 after General Electric dropped its sponsorship, although it reopened while Test Track was under construction and Universe of Energy was undergoing refurbishment. CommuniCore was stripped bare and reopened as Innoventions when the name changing began in 1994. The closures, replacements, and pavilion refurbishments have continued all the way through the recent Spaceship Earth refurbishment.

While the animatronic portions of Spaceship Earth have arguably never looked better, the narration has been dumbed down. The interactive portion, seemingly a way to bring the idea of Horizons back, seems to be more of a Jetsons vision of the future than a realistic one. Thrill rides now dominate Future World East between Test Track and Mission: SPACE. The most popular attraction in Future World West is in The Land pavilion: Soarin', a Disney's California Adventure transplant, is a hang glider simulator. The educational attraction Living With the Land is much less attended. Journey Into Imagination with Figment is a shell of its former self, and the accompanying Honey I Shrunk the Audience isn't helping the pavilion.

World Showcase for the most part remains untouched except for the princesses taking over Norway for a character breakfast. Guests can still experience many different cultures throughout the World Showcase pavilions. The biggest new attraction in World Showcase is the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure. The cell phones beeping are a little annoying, but it's getting kids more interested in the pavilions.

Let's imagine for a moment that Disney chose to update the Future World pavilions to coincide with the original park's mission instead of replacing and dumbing them down. Instead of making "Epcot" a meaningless word, the park is still EPCOT Center and the acronym still has meaning. The public still recognizes the park's mission of looking to humanity's future. EPCOT could be spun off into other media. Instead of the Discovery Channel, Disney could have created the EPCOT Channel. I think the content would be similar to the Discovery Channel or possibly the Science Channel. The channel then creates more interest in EPCOT Center. The new Disneynature series could be tied to EPCOT, The Land pavilion, and The Living Seas pavilion. For a company that looks for synergy and marketing strategy at every turn, I wonder why something like this has never materialized and instead "Epcot" is left to struggle on its own.

How do you feel about Epcot's current situation? Is the park today the direction you wanted? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter (@scottinwdw).