Disney still wishing on mobile content's star

The Walt Disney Internet Group is poised to launch a new mobile effort featuring a digital content storefront, an IM chat system and widgets, Forbes reports. In September, WDIG will begin to more closely integrate its mobile website with its online services, introducing a registration system that enables users to access their Disney.com profiles via mobile device--a retail portal boasting Disney games, ringtones and wallpapers will follow, and from there The Mouse will also port its Speed Chat messaging solution to the mobile platform. Additional plans for Disney to introduce mobile games and widgets tied to its film and television franchises, including a virtual pixie world scheduled to debut imminently. A mobile game tied to the Pirates of the Caribbean online site will also roll out in September or October, with real-time mobile polls and trivia games waiting in the wings.

Disney is no stranger to the mobile platform, of course--despite shuttering the Disney Mobile MVNO in the fall of 2007, WDIG has maintained a high profile on wireless, in 2008 alone introducing a Japanese MVNO, an ad-supported mobile portal and a mobile incarnation of its Radio Disney broadcast network. WDIG's executive vice president of business development and operations Larry Shapiro tells Forbes he believes more than 50 percent of 10-year-olds in the U.S. own phones, and Disney wants to "own" those mobile customers. "It's about creating a connected media world," Shapiro says. "If you want to reach tweens, you need mobile."

For more on Disney's mobile future:
- read this Forbes article

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