Disney launches mobile content publishing house

SAN FRANCISCO -- Disney’s mobile arm is going into the wireless content publishing business, announcing today it is reviving the Starwave brand to provide applications from its own and third-party brands.

Starwave was of the big Internet publishing companies in the mid 1990s, launching ABCNews.com and ESPN Sports Zone Online. Disney purchased the company in 1998 using it as the foundation for Walt Disney Internet Group, which oversees the company’s extensive web and mobile content offerings. Until now, however, WDIG only handled Disney content, but Larry Shapiro, WDIG executive vice president and general manager for North America mobile operations, said the group devised a robust publishing and distribution system that could be applied to other developers content.

”We built this great infrastructure to deliver Disney content,” Shapiro said. “Why not use it to compete for publishing business?”

Starwave has already landed licenses for Trivial Pursuit, Don Bluth’s Dragon’s Lair, Hudson Entertainment titles Burger Time and Bombermam as well as content from Asian providers. Shapiro said Starwave is almost done finalizing several more content deals, but they hadn’t closed by the time of Starwave’s launch at CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment. Some of the most valuable content, however, will come from Disney itself, as it uses Starwave as a vehicle to deliver its large portfolio of non-Disney content. Just like Disney produces non-family films under the Miramax and Touchstone names, it will keep its non-family mobile titles separate from its core brand, Shapiro said.

Middleware developer UIEvolution will provide the technology used to deliver and run Disney applications and content for Starwave as well as work with some of Disney’s third party developers. UIEvolution’s UIEngine is an operating layer that allows developers to build applications to a common set of specifications, instead of rebuilding the application for every operating system and handset on the market. A small middleware client downloaded with each application acts as the interface between the general application and a handset’s unique specifications.

The Starwave announcement will consolidate Disney’s already formidable content library with other highly desirable titles, feeding what UIEvolution vice president of marketing and product management Chris Ruff said will be a necessary consolidation in the industry.

“This isn’t an industry that can support hundreds of publishers,” Ruff said. “There’s only a handful of publishers that will be able to make money, and that’s where we’ll focus our efforts.”