TechCrunch describes a new move by Disney into the mobile messaging market:
Disney today is wading into the mobile messaging market with a new chat application called Disney Mix, aimed at kids, tweens and families. While the app will compete to some extent with popular messaging clients like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and others, the goal with Disney Mix is to provide a safer alternative that's built with the needs of kids in mind. That means the app isn't just about chatting -- it's also about playing games, making memes, sharing stickers and more, says Disney.
The company notes that it already has over a decade of experience when it comes to building online communities for children, including things like Club Penguin, MarvelKids, and other virtual worlds.
[...] In Disney Mix, friends can chat with each other, which includes sending stickers of favorite Disney characters, like Flash from Zootopia, Hank from Finding Dory, and Jenny from Adventures in Babysitting, for example. Additional content in the app comes from Frozen, Monsters University, Toy Story, K.C. Undercover, Descendants, and other Disney franchises.
Beyond chatting with friends and family, kids can also add Disney accounts to their Friends List, like Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Movies. These accounts will then message them with new photos and videos periodically, along with other news.
Perhaps the biggest differentiator between Disney Mix and a straightforward messaging client is that it has a variety of interactive games built-in, like Spikes, Elsa's Winter Walz, and Cards of D
Disney Mix is available for free for iOS and Android.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:49PM
Line messenger, except with your parent's credit cards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:16PM
When I try this app, first thing I'm gonna check is whether the gun sticker looks like a proper gun, or did they pull an Apple and only have a water pistol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @11:17PM
I want a flintlock sticker! How else am I going to repost Gaston?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday August 06 2016, @07:01AM
I gotta admit I had to read the summary several times, as I was getting some sort of vertigo parsing it.
sharing stickers and more, says Disney.
It was the words "sharing" and "Disney" in the same line...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @07:22PM
There are already enough ways to distract a child with technology, having their communications go through a company that will mine them for advertising / product creation is a step farther than I would allow.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday August 05 2016, @07:41PM
That's why they will get the kids to download this app without asking their parents.
You are also in a small minority of adults that either care or even realize there are privacy risks.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @09:12PM
Disney?
Be it their movies, their theme parks, or their swag, that shit is creepy as all fuck, especially given how many of them are single, poor to middle class, aren't pro-copyright, but are completely clueless as to how horrible Disney is as a company, especially in regards to expecting copyright to benefit them over the common good, and stealing and remonetizing foreign ideas which are not yet out of copyright (Lion King!), while at the same time slapping down legitimate use of their own IP by fans (see the lightsaber convention that got slapped down for using lightsaber, tons of marvel fans, and other disney themed fan recreations.) The only groups I know of to be bigger assholes than Disney are Games Workshop (Makers of the Warhammer Universe) and Paramount (owners of the copyrights and IP surrounding Star Trek as a result of their purchase of Desilu studios, the former studio of Lucy and Desi Arnez (prior to their divorce which began its decline and sale eventually ending up under the Paramount banner.)
On the other hand this is Darwinian evolution at work, which is all the more ironic by how many extremely conservative Christians seem to run all Disney/Christian programming in their households. (And yes I know the harder core ones are 'only' Christian programming. But their revenue pales in comparison to Disney in most cases, and elicits far less of the religious fervency that Disney somehow manages to evoke, even amongst otherwise non-religious people.)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday August 05 2016, @09:53PM
How do you know there is a small minority?
Are there statistics on this? Who compiles them?
Every family I know with young kids having any kind of app platform or computer monitors them and badgers them about over-sharing.
And most of the kids I know are pretty savvy about the issue, with at least a few of them opting out of facebook.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @08:42PM
Well... That's the end of that. It has some bad reviews too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 06 2016, @05:18AM
party!
(Score: 2) by Anne Nonymous on Saturday August 06 2016, @04:40PM
Disney is encouraging us to send mixed messages?