From nytimes.com:

The Walt Disney Company, concerned that its main Web site is not entertaining enough, is moving once again to overhaul Disney.com.

Among the changes on the new Disney.com, visitors can use a cellphone to create a butterfly pet for an avatar in Pixie Hollow, a virtual world built around the character Tinker Bell.

It will be the second recent makeover for the company’s marquee site, which is still the top Internet destination for children’s entertainment but faces increasing competition from players like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and WebKinz.

The changes, scheduled to take place over the next few months, will introduce more free video to the site including full-length movies like “Finding Nemo” as well as more games and things for visitors to do with their cellphones. For instance, little girls or bigger ones who create fairy avatars in a virtual world called Pixie Hollow will be able to use their cellphones to create pet butterflies for their fairies.

“I’m going to want to use my phone to feed and love my butterfly all the time,” said Larry Shapiro, executive vice president for mobile content. “That kind of emotional vesting is what we’re after.”

No longer will the site ask youngsters to navigate through categories like “Movies,” “TV” and “Live Events.” New options will include “Games,” “Videos” and “Characters” and will emphasize how to find immediate entertainment.

It is also no accident that video search pages will look similar to those of YouTube: Disney designers worked to incorporate certain YouTube hallmarks, figuring that kids had grown accustomed to viewing Web video in that manner.

“It’s a repositioning of our digital front door,” said Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online.

The effort, code-named “Project Playground,” is the second retrofitting of Disney.com in as many years, reflecting both the difficulty the media giant has encountered online and the whiplash-fast pace at which the medium is evolving.

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