3pointD.com

Reuters has a story today about Disney moving further toward massively multiplayer online games and virtual worlds, an announcement made by CEO Bob Iger at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Iger says the company will make MMOs and virtual worlds “based on a broad range of our properties” into a bigger priority going forward. Disney’s Pirate of the Caribbean Online is only the first such offering in the works, apparently. “You can imagine living in Buzz and Woody’s toy universe,” Iger added. Whether this means more games only, or includes virtual worlds along the lines of MTV’s Virtual Laguna Beach remains to be seen. But this speech, along with a similar announcement from CBS chief exec Les Moonves, is a good indication that more and more media companies are seeing virtual worlds as an important part of their offerings. This is the new trend in media convergence, as far as I’m concerned. Look for much more of this ahead.