Reports revealed that Disney appointed an executive to specifically lead the entertainment giant’s strategy for the metaverse.
In a memo to staff, chief executive Bob Chapek said the metaverse is “the next great storytelling frontier” to be explored.
Technology giants, including Facebook owner Meta and Microsoft, are pouring billions of dollars into the metaverse.
In the memo, Mr Chapek described the metaverse as a “perfect place to pursue our strategic pillars of storytelling excellence, innovation, and audience focus”.
White is set to become Disney’s senior vice president for Next Generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences. The company pointed out that he will allocate resources, explore partnerships and encourage knowledge sharing on the metaverse. He will also lead a team with skills including technology, strategy and storytelling.
In his new role, White will oversee how Disney rolls out virtual experiences across its multiple platforms—part of a broader metaverse strategy that Chapek first introduced last fall, when he described the metaverse as the “next great storytelling frontier.”
“For nearly 100 years, our company has defined and redefined entertainment by leveraging technology to bring stories to life in deeper, more impactful ways,” Chapek wrote his memo. “Today, we have an opportunity to connect those universes and create an entirely new paradigm for how audiences experience and engage with our stories.”
On the other hand, the Walt Disney Company’s streamer Disney+ will finally be available in Egypt and the Middle East in the summer of 2022.
The Middle East countries that Disney+ will launch in are Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Since Meta (previously Facebook) announced its ambitions for the Metaverse, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg declaring that virtual worlds and experiences are going to be guiding the company, many organizations in the industry have now stepped up their own metaverse ambitions.
For instance, Microsoft has outlined how it sees it having a platform and infrastructure role in the metaverse, as well as through the use of applications within Teams and Dynamics 365.
CEO Satya Nadella recently said, “It is absolutely top of mind because we realize that in the future, you can call it what you want…you want to call it metaverse, you can call it the blending of the physical and digital experiences…I think Disney should excel at this. We realize that it’s going to be less of a passive type experience where you just have playback whether it’s a sporting event or whether it’s an entertainment offering and more of an interactive lean forward, actively engaged type experience.”
