Disney’s Biggest Theme Park Mistakes

This is a refinement of an earlier article I did for LaughingPlace.com.

It started last year, as my wife and I finished our day at Disneyland and walked back to our room at the Disneyland Hotel. Not for the first time, I noticed the iconic “Disneyland Hotel” red neon sign missing, and an old sentiment awakened: “what moron decided to get rid of that sign?” (For those curious, here’s what it became.) At the start of every Disneyland trip—short of seeing the Matterhorn from Harbor Boulevard—was anything more evocative than that old sign?

I know: there’s some new Anaheim zoning law that precludes giant neon signs illuminating a several-city-block radius. Maybe Disney put up a good fight to keep the sign, but still…it seems like there exist alternatives that could have preserved the sign’s essence (red LEDs?) while complying with the regulation. Didn’t anyone at Disney find that sign as special as I did?

I didn’t stop there. Coasting a wave of indignation, I thought: what other mistakes has Disney made? This sprawling list is the result. Unlike the Disneyland Hotel sign fiasco, I decided to focus on what I consider to be the big mistakes: genuine blunders that have cost the company either 1) millions of dollars, or 2) millions of dollars in goodwill. (The “little” mistakes, like leaving that ridiculous Epcot wand up for a decade, merit inclusion on their own list…just not this one.)

So in no particular order, here we go…

I Say iTunes Store Rankings are Rigged

It was just hours ago that I stared, disgusted, at my TV as Comcast’s OnDemand service pelted me with ad after ad for their newest pay-per-view offering, the Matthew McConaughey-Kate Hudson crapfest Fool’s Gold. I found this disgusting because of all the fantastic movies in the world Comcast could promote, they were wasting time on this terrible specimen. (If you didn’t realize, Fool’s Gold received a 0% rating on RottenTomatoes. Few movies achieve this.)

Why lousy product gets promoted in this manner isn’t a mystery: the movie studios pay for that kind of placement. And to grant Comcast a miniscule amount of credit, they weren’t claiming the movie to be the best of anything; they were simply running an excessive number of ads for the program. So imagine my surprise when I logged onto AppleTV tonight and discovered that Comcast wasn’t the only one who’d received some special attention from the studios: Fool’s Gold was the #1 iTunes rental.

Are you kidding me?

It’s implausible that any population would be gung-ho for this film, but AppleTV/iPhone/iPod customers? I’ll submit my next statement to you without feeling the need to offer supporting evidence: the people that own those devices do not like movies like Fool’s Gold.

And while I found that #1 ranking preposterous, I was barely prepared for what would hit me next: Fool’s Gold wasn’t just the number one iTunes rental, it was also the number one purchase. That’s right: Apple is claiming that more people are purchasing Fool’s Gold, for $14.99, for permanent inclusion in their libraries, than any other movie on iTunes. Note to Apple: this is ridiculous. If you’re going to do “Top 10″ lists, do not let the studios buy placement on them.

Do I know for certain that the iTunes store ratings are rigged? No, I don’t. But I’d be happy to listen to anyone’s even semi-plausible excuse for how this could be happening.

Does this ruin the iTunes store for me? Of course not. But anytime Comcast can show you up in the ethics department, it’s time to re-examine your practices.

Come see TILT at IDEO this Thursday

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and would like to catch a public showing of TILT, please stop by the Palo Alto office of design firm IDEO at 5pm this Thursday, June 12. Given IDEO’s illustrious history, I’m hoping for lots of great product design-related discussion during the Q&A with me before and after the screening. Please stop by to catch the film, talk about pinball, Disney posters, or whatever else you’re interested in…

Hope to see you there!

Space Mountain imagery follow-up

Following-up on my earlier Space Mountain poster—created specifically to address the lack of high-quality Mountain-related imagery flowing out of Disney—the Vintage Disneyland Tickets blog proves me wrong with some beautiful stuff I’d never seen before.

This ticket image isn’t really done any favors with the its single-color palette, but the composition is great:

And this ’70s-era magazine cover really would have been a beautiful attraction poster in its own right, capturing that pencil-drawn, ’70s vignette look that is so emblematic of the era:

Again, check out the Vintage Disneyland Tickets blog for more info on these images…and thanks to its proprietor for digging them up!

WWDC iPhone Predictions

We’re still a ways away from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (June 9-13, 2008), but it’s not too soon to start the foolish and almost always incorrect speculation about what will be announced. Here’s my guess at what might happen with the iPhone.

Everyone’s taken it as a foregone conclusion that a 3G phone will be introduced, and by Apple’s non-reaction I think we can assume that’s correct. (If it’s not, Apple needs to start doing damage control right this second.) As I’ve said before, I believe this is less of an event than most think it is—EDGE network performance and MobileSafari rendering are a workable combination; better than most are used to, anyway—but analysts have been dying to find some chink in the iPhone’s armor, and this is the closest thing to it.

But beyond 3G, what will we see? I suspect we’ll see the iPhone line transition to two—and maybe three—distinct categories. What will happen to the current iPhone model is where I’m most confused, so I’ll start at the low-end: I think we’ll see an iPhone “mini”. The introduction of a mini model in the iPod line is the moment at which the iPod went from high-end curiosity to mainstream sensation; I think a cheaper phone priced at $199 is likely to do the same for the iPhone. What this iPhone mini will look like is a complete mystery to me, though I suspect it will leave off everything to do with the Internet in favor of straightforward phone, PIM, and iPod functionality.

Like I said, the mid- to high-end is where I’m less certain:

• Scenario 1: (75% probability) A relatively mild evolution of the current iPhone, with 3G networking. Maybe we’ll see 16 Gig ($399) and 32 Gig ($599) models.
• Scenario 2: (25% probability) The aforementioned 16 Gig model represents the “mid-range”, while the high-end 32 Gig model gets some additional blockbuster feature. Maybe it’s GPS, maybe it’s video conferencing…who knows. This model may then sell for even more than $599…maybe $699? If it’s a knock-your-socks-off feature, I have no doubt Apple could fetch that much cash, and with an iPhone mini in place, they can avoid the “overpriced” criticism that has dogged them.

If the iPhone mini does come to pass, I suspect we may see something in Q4 that many thought we might not see for years: the start of a downward trend in iPod sales. Some will try and paint this as a negative, but face it: the standalone MP3 player was obviously a goner in the long-term; that it’s happening sooner than some expected is a testament to how quickly the iPhone became a stunningly compelling product.

Now the wait…just exactly how wrong will I be?

Update: After the fact, I don’t feel too bad, though my predictions would hardly qualify as clairvoyant. No new category of iPhone, but I knew that was a long-shot given the complete lack of rumors around such a thing. I was dead-on in terms of $199 being a magic price point, though I (like everyone else) was shocked that it was the 3G-GPS iPhone that would hit that number. I still think there could be a market for a way-simplified iPhone that does far less than the current model. Too many people think the current iPhone offers too many features. (They’re wrong, though you can’t blame them for thinking that way given their experience with other manufacturers’ phones.)

The Official Release of TILT

…happened this past week, on April 8, 2008. If you like pinball–or even if you don’t, but are the kind of person who enjoys learning about how things get built–please go check out the film’s official web site. And now at the low price of $20, this thing is priced to move. Pick up your copy now! (That is, if you want to…but I really think you’ll like it.)

Lots of reviews over the past couple of weeks. A few of my favorites:

• Pete Croatto’s review at Home Media Magazine gives the perspective of the non-pinball player. (”…smart and fun, while never making us think that we’re wasting our time on a niche subject…it’s impossible not to stay interested.”)
• Glenn Turner’s review over at The New Gamer tells it from the video game player’s point of view.
• Khoi Vinh’s review at Subtraction.com watches the film through the eye of a designer.
• Finally, an interview with Simon Carless at GameSetWatch gives me a chance to try to sound important, discussing how and why I made TILT.

Space Mountain Attraction Poster

Visitors to Space Mountain today, with its Buck Rogers, sci-fi-inspired trappings, might be excused for forgetting the over-the-top NASA awesomeness that was the style back when the ride opened in 1975. (Does anyone else miss this statue out front?) Hopefully I can jog some memories with my attempt at a Space Mountain poster, a ride whose previous posters have always seemed like afterthoughts.

Design-wise, I was on shaky ground: the style is Disneyland serigraph circa 1958, yet this ride didn’t open until 1975, an era in which 1) Disney produced few posters, and 2) those that they did exhibited little in the way of style, silk-screened or otherwise. Ultimately, I decided to live with the ’50s/’70s contradiction. (And if I ever come up with an idea on how to do a good ’70s-era Space Mountain poster, I’ll give it a try.)

As I did with my earlier posters, I’ve provided versions that you can download yourself, print out, decorate your wall, etc. The only thing I ask is that if you like it enough to download it, please either leave a comment below or drop me a note and let me know what you think.

Anyone wanting to take a deeper dive into retro Space Mountain should absolutely read show producer George McGinnis’ take on the design of the ride (part 1 and part 2). And to learn more about the actual experience of Space Mountain, check out the great Space Mountain page at Widen Your World.

Hope you enjoy the poster! (And a shameless plug: if you haven’t already checked it out, please visit the web site for my documentary TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball, just released this past week. If you’re the kind of person that enjoys this poster, you might just be the kind of person that’ll like my film. Thanks!)

On to the downloads!

There are two versions of the poster: a 4 x 6 inch version with no bleed (the color “stops” right at the border of the image), and a 36 x 54 inch version with a 0.5 inch bleed (the color leaks over the edge, so if it’s trimmed you won’t see any white edges.) Since either version can be scaled by your print driver to be any size you’d like, the version you pick has less to do with the size you want the poster to be than whether you want the bleed or not. To scale the image, on the Mac, just specify the appropriate percentage in the Page Setup… dialog. On Windows I’m not sure, but there’s got to be a similar way to do it.

• 4 x 6 inch PDF, no bleed [download, right-click/ctrl-click to save]
• 36 x 54 inch PDF, 0.5 inch bleed [download, right-click/ctrl-click to save]
• 400 pixel height PNG [download, right-click/ctrl-click to save]
• 1000 pixel height PNG [download, right-click/ctrl-click to save]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 License. And again, if you download, please leave a comment below or e-mail me!

iPhone Apps: the First Non-HTML Web App Standard?

For years, Java Web Start, Adobe AIR, several Microsoft initiatives, and who knows how many failed startups, have all tried to answer the question: does it make any sense to take all of that “traditional app”-development expertise that’s floating around in the world, and use it to try to write web applications that are based around something other than HTML? (Or, to characterize these companies motives more accurately: how can we own that thing that dares to compete with HTML?)

With iPhone apps, we may have the answer, and it’s due to the App Store and its highly compelling business model. What will make developers buy a Mac to write code on, learn Objective C, write to APIs they’d previously never heard of, and finally, pay (an admittedly scrawny) $99 for the privilege? Money. And the App Store provides an incredibly compelling way to make it.

I’ll now launch into an awkward analogy, but I’ll go with it, because it shows how far Apple has come over the past ten years: with the iPhone App Store, we have a bit of the promise of OpenDoc–small bits of code, sold quickly and easily for low prices, tying into larger ones floating around on the network–but wired to a business model that makes so much sense, it just slaps you in the face and dares you not to make sense of it.

We had to practically blackmail developers to write to OpenDoc. I’m not even sure there needs to be an evangelist for the iPhone App Store.

iPhone Apps: More Exciting than Facebook?

With iPhone apps, we have a technology that might just be able to deliver the viral addictiveness of Facebook apps, but combined with a monetization plan, something Facebook app developers figure they can get around to some day, but for reasons they share with no one, haven’t decided to.

iPhone Apps have the same persistent user identity model that makes it so much easier to sign up for Facebook apps than traditional web apps (where each demands its own userid and password.) iPhone’s App Store also shares Facebook’s one-click installation model. Combine that with the fact that your iPhone knows your credit card number, and there’s something really going on here. (It does lack Facebook’s “social graph” aspect…or does it? How long before we see iPhone apps that try to spam your Contacts? I mean, Apple developers probably won’t be as crass as that, but no doubt they’ll figure out some way to do this tastefully and non-intrusively.)

I posed my headline as a question, but can there be any doubt?

iPhone App Store: “Developer picks price”…screw you, record labels

Just going through the Apple keynote, and marveling at the moment where Jobs tells the world that developers get to pick whatever price they want for their apps. It’s a nice “screw you” to the record industry, who have long asserted that they deserve a similar right to charge different pricing for different songs.

I don’t think there’s any chance this represents a change in Apple’s thinking. Jobs will credibly (though not persuasively) assert that the app market is completely different from that for recorded music. But is Apple right? It’s possible the App Store may show that these two markets aren’t as wildly dissimilar as people suspect. Perhaps “digital goods” are just “digital goods,” whether they’re recorded music or executable code?