Disney’s Big Brother?
January 11, 2013 at 1:07 PM
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Walt Disney announced through its Walt Disney blog, that they plan to replace card tickets with an RFID enabled bracelet for all its guests. The bracelets will make park tickets, hotel keys, cash and credit cards a thing of the past whilst at their resorts. It can also keep track of your kids too.
The bracelet will allow Disney to monitor what their guests do in detail quite easily. They will launch it under the term “My Magic” and once loaded with your credit cards you can swipe the bracelet to pay for just about anything whilst in the park. It can even be used for fast pass access.
What did you ride and when? Did you shake Tigger’s hand, hug Mickey but avoided Pluto? If you fully use My Magic, Disney will be watching, allowing them to refine their offerings and marketing messages.
They could also be encoded with a whole range of personal details, giving way for more personalised interaction with Disney employees. For example, the employee playing Cinderella could say hello only in a general way in the past but with the bracelet, if guests opt in, hidden sensors will read bracelet data, giving Cinderella information needed for a personalised greeting, like “Happy Birthday Joey”. Imagine how excited the kids would be to have their favourite characters greeting them by name.
Finally, if you’re not too happy about sharing this information with Disney, the bracelet is optional and even if you do agree to use it you can decide what information goes on it.
All of this is part of the new My Disney Experience website, where you can plan your trip to the last detail or, just a little. Using the mobile app you can update it as your trip unfolds, using it to plan your way around the parks attractions, booking fastpass places and dinner reservations etc.
By Steve Sewell