Alan Fredericks last week compared the Internet's lack of tidiness
to "walking in to the New York Public Library and finding all of
the books on the floor." Of course, the humor of the moment largely
depended on Alan's inimitable delivery -- sort of a cross between
Tom Brokaw and Jack Benny.
But Alan's message is nonetheless potent for the fact that it
broke up the joint. Cyberspace is the high-tech equivalent of
Gertrude Stein's California: "There's no there, there."
So, any attempt at cataloguing, compartmentalizing or in any way
organizing the Web is laudable. Crossroads does it every day. And
believe me, it ain't easy.
Now, Disney has done it with the newly unveiled www.disney.com. The
Mouse House rolled out its shiny new mega-site yesterday in a
sparkling debut. Looks like the company's Web developers should
have designed the Disney Magic, thereby avoiding all that irksome
bad press.
The new Web effort culls the three main Disney sites:
Disney.com, Family.com and Disney Daily Blast under one cyber-roof.
The result is a super-fast, beautifully designed site that is a
pleasure to use and peruse. For travelers, it's a great place to
get a grip on everything Disney has to offer, which is of course,
the point.
And they say that Macy's doesn't tell Gimbels.