Splitsville Blog Meet-Up

[PhotoDave219]

I try and steer clear of Disney's Social Media team. ... We travel in different circles, but I would advise anyone here who was left out and sees the same folks from the sites on every invite list to contact them or perhaps even Jason Garcia who covers WDW for the O-Sentinel (this is the type of weak story that he might have interest in) and very nicely point out that something isn't right and fair and you're sure Disney wants to do right and be fair, so how can they change things.

That's the nature of the 'net. And I'm sorry if your friend Ms. Litton got trapped in the middle as that certainly wasn't my intent or the intent of most here. ... But I also don't think anyone was being attacked (talking about someone, asking questions and making suggestions isn't attacking). As to vendettas, don't see that ... agendas, most certainly!

I see a vendetta/agenda by the person who started this thread but most everyone else is venting or discussing something thats been bubbling right under the surface.

I don't think Jason would be interested in this. Transportation issues, attendance growth, anything that affects the stock price, yes. Disney credentialing everyone and their cousin? Thats something that I'm sure he knows about.

Disney's credentialling everyone isnt a new phenomena. Holy crap, you should see all the alleged"professional" photographers on the sidelines of a college football game. Thats another rant for another time tho.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I honestly don't recall seeing you post before ... do you ever post on News and Rumors?

I havent posted in like 2 years. Or longer.

Yes, This thread got me out of the woodwork. I used to mainly hang in the PML & the photo forums.

 

[WDW1974]

Thats the big issue. You have two entirely different departments at play here. Likely completely different business units; PR (who would handle credentialing media) and Social Media. Its unlikely that they have access to whom the credentialed media folks are to compare against who signs up for their social media events.

Not any longer. It's all sort of blended together. That's why longtime publicists like the highly respected John McClintock from Anaheim will appear on the Parks Blog next to some sappy piece by Jenn Fickley Baker next to some merchandise shilling from Steven Miller etc.

The Social Media Department would have access to any/all lists of who is credentialed for an event at WDW (likely all Disney resorts worldwide). And they don't need that database to know who most of these folks are. They've met them all. They've arranged things for them. They've pretended to be their friends and talked and laughed about them when their backs were turned (social media types haven't figured out that's what publicists do!) Hell, I'm reasonably sure they go and do a checklist deal on blogging sites represented at each of these events as soon as the official list is on the Blog.

 

[flynnibus]

Ok - the real dirt

This is based on info Disney has released... with threads like this, I doubt they will release the info for future events

WDW has has 5 meet-ups posted on the blog. One of those, the star tours one, they did not post an attendee list.

For the 4 events where an attendee list was posted. There were 707 attendees total.

Of those 707

• There were 484 'one timers' who only did one event
• There were 140 slots taken by people who made it to two events (70 people)
• There were 39 slots taken by people who made it to three events (13 people)
• There were 44 slots taken by people who managed to get into all 4 events (11 people)

So out of 578 people..

• 1.9% made it to all four events
• 4.1% made it to three events
• 16.2% made it to two events
• 83.7% made it to just one event

I think it makes it clear - these events are not being 'hogged' or overrun by the same hand-picked people over and over. It would appear they are there.. but they are a far far minority.

Now what about the people that always manage to get in? I make no claim to be on top of the Disney fanboi phonebook or soap operas. This is research based on simple Googling of readily available info with zero real effort put into it.

Of the 11 people... 7 have clear ties to Disney blogsphere or Disney itself (would you believe Disney CMs are in this list? true.. )

So here are the ones listed in all four of the attendee lists:
Kristin Alexander
Chad Baker
Benjamin Breitbart
Ricky Brigante
Jami Carpenter
Mark Diba
Suzannah DiMarzio
George Russell
Georgia Russell
Nicole Siscaretti
Marc Stumbo

There are also a few names in the list that would make you think they are actually alias' as well. There is one who is a writer from New York.. that seems to make a lot of these blog reader events too...

So take the info as you will. Standard disclaimers apply.. I only know the info Disney released and what could readily be deduced from public webpages. I make no claim to how these people get in or out - just reporting on data correlations in the info provided.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Thanks for the number crunching. Good stuff. Proves a few things....

 

[ptaylor]

The number analysis from flynnibus is interesting, but does not change a key fact. The usual suspects always get in one way or another. If it is not as a direct attendee, it is as a guest of someone else who is on the list, if it is not as a guest of another guest, it is via some other route. If it is a cast member preview, they beg a cast member to take them. So not seeing their name on the original list does not really prove anything.

 

[wdwmagic]

How do you know that? Who got banned? No one here probably contradicts the owner here more than me ... Lee might be a distant second with our UK buddy Martin right there. Steve doesn't go around banning people for contradicting him. ... I do know that both Tom and Merf have tempers (it's why I'd pay to have them wrestle in a kiddie pool full of PB&J and turkey legs ... we could do it on the beach to help kick off the selling of GF DVC and donate the money to charity!) and I'm sure obliterated the line to get tossed. Personally, I'd love it if they both were here (I am SURE the owner disagrees!) because you need different viewpoints ...

You are absolutely right. It takes a lot to get yourself banned from my site, and disagreeing with me is not one of them.

Those that do get themselves banned know why they were banned, yet conveniently seem to forget that, and just preach to their followers that they were simply banned because they had a different opinion than mine. Not true.

Most of them were banned for displaying serious issues that were a detracting from the usefulness of the forum for everyone else. Typically those who ended up in that position would also start their own site - to "destroy" WDWMAGIC as one of them told me. They would then return to the forum with a whole host of new usernames to endlessly try to promote their new site. They would be banned over and over, yet would still not get the message.

It is always fascinating to see how those who tell me how much they hate WDWMAGIC continue to visit both the main site and the forum on a daily basis. They just can't stay away.

 

[The Mom]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I honestly don't recall seeing you post before ... do you ever post on News and Rumors?

There are long time members who do not post frequently, but still drop in from time to time. Good to see you, Dave.

 

[cdunbar]

There are long time members who do not post frequently, but still drop in from time to time. Good to see you, Dave.

What she said...

And FYI people I also know Mark Diba... he does not write a blog.

 

[cdunbar]

The number analysis from flynnibus is interesting, but does not change a key fact. The usual suspects always get in one way or another. If it is not as a direct attendee, it is as a guest of someone else who is on the list, if it is not as a guest of another guest, it is via some other route. If it is a cast member preview, they beg a cast member to take them. So not seeing their name on the original list does not really prove anything.

You REALLY have a thing against the media... It's like almost an obsession... Are you y cause you didn't see the dragon fly? There, there...

 

[ptaylor]

You REALLY have a thing against the media... It's like almost an obsession... Are you y cause you didn't see the dragon fly? There, there...

Just saying it the way it is. Seems to have struck a big nerve with a lot of people .

 

[Gtovryslf]

I see a vendetta/agenda by the person who started this thread but most everyone else is venting or discussing something thats been bubbling right under the surface.

No vendetta or agenda. Just pointing out a fact. I wasn't the first, nor shall I be the last.

 

[tahqa]

Ok - the real dirt

This is based on info Disney has released... with threads like this, I doubt they will release the info for future events

WDW has has 5 meet-ups posted on the blog. One of those, the star tours one, they did not post an attendee list.

For the 4 events where an attendee list was posted. There were 707 attendees total.

Of those 707

• There were 484 'one timers' who only did one event
• There were 140 slots taken by people who made it to two events (70 people)
• There were 39 slots taken by people who made it to three events (13 people)
• There were 44 slots taken by people who managed to get into all 4 events (11 people)

So out of 578 people..

• 1.9% made it to all four events
• 4.1% made it to three events
• 16.2% made it to two events
• 83.7% made it to just one event

I think it makes it clear - these events are not being 'hogged' or overrun by the same hand-picked people over and over. It would appear they are there.. but they are a far far minority.


Now what about the people that always manage to get in? I make no claim to be on top of the Disney fanboi phonebook or soap operas. This is research based on simple Googling of readily available info with zero real effort put into it.

Of the 11 people... 7 have clear ties to Disney blogsphere or Disney itself (would you believe Disney CMs are in this list? true.. )

So here are the ones listed in all four of the attendee lists:
Kristin Alexander
Chad Baker
Benjamin Breitbart
Ricky Brigante
Jami Carpenter
Mark Diba
Suzannah DiMarzio
George Russell
Georgia Russell
Nicole Siscaretti
Marc Stumbo

There are also a few names in the list that would make you think they are actually alias' as well. There is one who is a writer from New York.. that seems to make a lot of these blog reader events too...

So take the info as you will. Standard disclaimers apply.. I only know the info Disney released and what could readily be deduced from public webpages. I make no claim to how these people get in or out - just reporting on data correlations in the info provided.

I'm not sure you're looking at this correctly, if you're doing it automatically your process is not working as you think. Names with different spacing or slight variation will not match up algorithmically (usually). I manually looked at the lists for the last three events and matched them up by hand.

There are 35 people that got in for the last two events. The Be Our Guest event had 98 people on the list and the Splitsville event has 125. That means that 35%(!!) of the people that made it into BoG are also going to Splitsville. Of those 35 people 21 also went to the Wreck-It-Ralph event.

I didn't do the match up between Wreck-It-Ralph and Splitsville but I'd wager that it's at least 1/3 of them were going to Splitsville.

So 21 people went to the last three events.

Let's sum this up:

Looking at the guest list for Splitsville --
28% also attended BoG
17% also attended BoG and Wreck-It

If you just look at BoG --
21% also attended Wreck-It
35% are going to Splitsville

I think it makes it clear - it is not a small minority of people hogging these events. There are a significant percentage of people that are going to repeat events.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Dang. My dear old mother and I have crafted ourselves into exhaustion and I actually slept farmer's hours last night. Missed all the fun!

I don't do twitter, blogs, podcasts, etc etc mostly because I simply haven't the time or real desire.

My issue was and still is the fellow calling what he did "work" that merited a return "fun" trip...both on Mickey's dime. That's cute. My head spins for all the truly hard-working folks in this world...standing frontlines, swinging hammers, climbing around pipe racks....I could go on all day, really. And yes, I would say that directly to him if we were standing face to face talking. No problem. I'd definitely have laughed and questioned the logic.

Wow.

 

[Matpez]

Howdy folks, I just wanted to jump in here briefly. I personally know most of these very nice people in real life, but I'm not here to talk about that... My wife got into this event, I'm excited and looking forward to it. She got in at random, by being quick to respond to a blog post. To get into these events (I also got into the Star Tours one, hope that by admitting that I'm not going to be the subject of the next three pages of personal attacks) you have to provide the Disney social media team with your email address, name & home address. It would be easy for them to filter out people with the same last name, same address, same IP address, those that have attended previous events, etc. The Disney social media team doesn't do that, however, this thread has decided that rather than attack or question them (because they work for Disney, they can't be wrong) we should attack those who are attending the meet and question their life choices. Amazing. Again, I now expect to be attacked just for posting and for mentioning I was lucky enough to be accepted into this event. These people you attack are all good, nice people who have chosen to do something different than you. Maybe your job rewards you with show tickets, vacations, free food, etc. Their job rewards them with opportunities like this. That's it. If you look at it any other way than those (1. Disney knows who they choose. 2. Those people have the best opportunity to be 1st) you are simply jealous that you didn't get into the event and resorting to VERY personal attacks online in a public forum against folks who didn't actually do anything to cause you harm.

 

[lazyboy97o]

@Matpez, did you actually read the thread or are you just going off of what your friends told you? The issue is not with attendees of the event but a rather specific subset of attendees.

 

[cdunbar]

Just saying it the way it is. Seems to have struck a big nerve with a lot of people .

But the point remains this, why are you all attacking people who got in? DISNEY picks the people, if you want to complain write DISNEY a letter or an email or walk into Team Disney and share your feelings. I think you all need to also realize several things:

1. Disney is a business, a BIG business.
2. Disney picks the people for this event.
3. Disney as a BIG business picks the people who will serve them the most.
4. The people who will serve them the most are bloggers, and individuals with a social media presence. If you have a twitter with like five followers, Disney isn't going to pick you, sorry it's the truth. You want to get in create an online presence, and I don't mean on here. While Steve runs a great site, Disney is all about getting the information out about something that's new as quick as possible.

 

[lazyboy97o]

But the point remains this, why are you all attacking people who got in?

In the case of those who have been to the media events, they know they went to the media event. They could choose to let somebody else get the free experience.

 

[Matpez]

@Matpez, did you actually read the thread or are you just going off of what your friends told you? The issue is not with attendees of the event but a rather specific subset of attendees.

1.I read all of it.
2.The personal attacks begin.
3.I understand what the thread is about and made very easy to understand, valid points about that.

 

[ptaylor]

But the point remains this, why are you all attacking people who got in? DISNEY picks the people, if you want to complain write DISNEY a letter or an email or walk into Team Disney and share your feelings. I think you all need to also realize several things:

1. Disney is a business, a BIG business.
2. Disney picks the people for this event.
3. Disney as a BIG business picks the people who will serve them the most.
4. The people who will serve them the most are bloggers, and individuals with a social media presence. If you have a twitter with like five followers, Disney isn't going to pick you, sorry it's the truth. You want to get in create an online presence, and I don't mean on here. While Steve runs a great site, Disney is all about getting the information out about something that's new as quick as possible.

Have you looked at the Twitter accounts of some of these people? Some have a few hundred followers, some have a couple of thousand, some have maybe 2000 followers and follow 2400, which gives them a -400 real follower count. I look at something like WDWMAGIC, they have 15000 followers, and follow about 10, giving a real follower count in the region of 15000. Which do you think can get the message out to more?