According to the Wall
Street Journal Online, Disney is re-launching Disney.com later this month. 

It will offer “a labyrinth
of chat rooms, games and personalized pages that will target kids and their
parents.” 

“Mr. Iger [Disney CEO] says
the new Disney.com is "the single most important companywide strategy
Disney is currently implementing."”

“In its first iteration, Disney.com will lock
its audience inside the Disney world — kids won’t be able to bring in anything
from outside the site. Mr. Iger accepts that the policy is restrictive and
says, "we’re looking at ways to change that" — but only if contact
outside the site can be policed. Mr. Yanover says the site is a "work in
progress."” 

I’m not sure they’ll ever
be able to adequately police “contact outside the site”. But then again, having a restricted site may
not be bad for Disney. 

I doubt Disney.com is ever
going to pull people away from MySpace or Facebook, but why would it want to? 

Disney is the wholesome
family brand. It’s supposed to be a safe
place for kids.

If Disney’s plan is to
target their offering to the very young through pre-teens, and if their secondary
goal is to assuage parental fears of social networking, they might just have a
winner.