I’ve not listened but I’m guessing it was Where’s My Water from Disney
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wheres-my-water/id449735650?mt=8

Congrats on the new iPad 2!!

I am going to do what so many betamousers are doing, and leave my subscription up in iTunes just in case you all get the band back together every now and then.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and stay classy.

That being said, totally understand your decision. You guys have been very generous with your time, and I wish you all the best. Thanks a million.

Chris

Best of luck on your new gigs … I’ll continue be there in spirit with Nate & Matt listening to Wedway Radio and hoping for periodic guest appearances by Team Betamouse. God bless.

But in all seriousness, thank you for providing such a great resource for anything of actual importance. As the only podcast that gets me all warm and toasty, Betamouse has been the river of life from which I couldn’t stop drinking. All analogies aside. Ye hath been an inspiration. TO BETAMOUSE! *takes a swigg* May it live forever in our hearts and our pocket protectors.

Lee

All the best on your new adventure and hopefully we’ll still hear from you in one way or another.

Thank you, take care… and thanks for the fish.

I loved the different, analytic approach you guys (and girl) took in approaching the current Disney parks and their future potential. Everyone seemed to really have a passion for not only the Mouse, but the tech involved as well – which was great. I also loved the out-takes at the end.

Good luck to all of you in your future endeavours, and remember when enemy ships are in sector 47…IT’S A TRAP.

P.S. Henry, I guess this means no more HEEEEEEEEEEENNNRRRRRRRRRRYY! on WDWToday??

You will be missed online, but I’m honored to consider you all friends, and hope to see you in the parks again soon.

My sincerest best wishes to each of you going forward, and thank you again for your time, information, insight and laughs

Thank you for all you have contributed to the Disney mindspace.

I was going to send you a note about a dream I had the other night which was a very Betamouse type thing. Too long to explain in a comment.

At the end of the show, everyone expressed how much they’d love to go to Hawaii but that the $2000 air fare was holding them back.

I had always assumed that flights to Hawaii would be that expensive but last year I got a client in Hawaii and have taken several trips there since. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I could always find a flight from eastern Canada or the US to Honolulu for about $700. If you’re flying from L.A., you can find flights in the $400-$500 range.

Aloha!

Also, why just the deluxe resorts. Don’t forget Disney does a fair amount of convention business and those travelers may base their hotel choice based on Wi-Fi availability.

The last comment about 4G, good point but don’t forget that 4G networks will not be immune to congestion concerns even if their capacity is much higher than 3G. Some of the 4G providers are not in a hurry to pressure Apple to offer a 4G iPhone because they know their networks will start to get congested with the traffic. Many of the 4G providers are investing in Wi-Fi, and encouraging high traffic facilities to invest in Wi-Fi in order to have a nice avenue to offload that traffic to. Don’t be surprised if some of the major carriers is working with Disney to build up their Wi-Fi infrastructure to offload 3G and 4G traffic to Wi-Fi in a high density traffic area.

But for now, Disney will need to be careful not to alienate us if they rolled it out without giving us some way of being able to interact.

Thanks again!

ROLL TEAM BETAMOUSE!

Some fun pictures can be found there and I appreciate sharing the behind-the-scenes of how this was put together. Site is bookmarked and will be frequented for when I need some visual Disney fixes.

Thanks!

Keep up the great work, team.

My 10yo daughter loved the enchanted artwork as well as the Detective Agency (she did it 3 times in 5 days!)while on the ship. I found both to be really engaging for guests of all ages and if my kids weren’t with me, I would have done the Detective Agency myself!

I should add that the first time we solved a case we did it all as a family…including my husband and 5yo son. At 5yo, he was very interested but needed a significant amount of guidance using the card and interacting with the artwork.

I feel that adding this technology in each of the parks will really add to every guest’s experience, and truly be something for return guests to look forward to. The Kim Possible adventures are a big hit with our family and I am sure that the Scorcerers will be as well.

I wonder what kind of interactive “games” they are planning for Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios? I could definitely see something Phineas & Ferb themed in DHS!

Have you been on the Harry Potter ride at Universal yet? Spoilers: At one point, a dementor steals your soul and your picture is projected on a mist. I’d imagine that things like “Haunted Kingdom” and “Toy Story Maniacs” are similar to that; your photo appears in the ride or maybe your name shows up on a tombstone in the queue.

Facebook feeds have become so polluted with posts I don’t want to see. Plus, it seems FB has made it harder to filter out posts you’re not interested in. I find it harder to keep up with the friends I want to if they’re not in a specific Facebook group, so I’m finding less value in Facebook for my personal updates and communications.

I run a traditional message board for a NASCAR driver, which has been off-line for a couple weeks due to a snafu on my part, and I get messages every day from both regular posters and lurkers who want to know when it’s coming back on line. I think forums are great for niche communities, and I don’t see them going away soon. We also have a very active Facebook fan page for our driver with nearly 19,000 members and close to 13,000 active contributors. But until last week, our driver didn’t personally take the Twitter or FB plunge. He created a Twitter account just a few days ago and he already has over 10,000 followers and growing. I think Twitter is a great way for celebrities to communicate with their fans with little effort and risk. The fans have really responded to him and are getting a much better insight into his character, and he’s enjoying it way more than he expected to.

I had to laugh @Katie when she said Disboards is intimidating. I suppose it is! But I’ve been on message boards since at least 1993 (hellooo CompuServe) so I’m not easily scared by them. I do think Disboards is still about the best source for fan-to-fan Disney info since they have so many active members.

I’m looking forward to learning Google+.

- GetGlowing on Lines & Disboards / xrae on Twitter

Thanks for honest feedback — and for caring to leave it! It’s easy to forget sometimes that more than 10 other people actually listen to the show (some of whom actually want it to be good!).

One thing to note about this Win/Fail/Meh format: we don’t share the topics we come up with before we record. We can’t guarantee knowledge in each subject by all parties.

Lastly, in regards to the ValidFill stuff, we recorded the episode on July 12th. As far as I know, at that time, we had only heard vague reports of some kind of system being tested at All-Star Sports. MouseSteps had done a quick video, but there was very little information in the Disney circles about it (and we hadn’t found the cool ValidFill promo reel either). So, sorry on that one. Late July we were all on various vacations, I was off getting hitched, and we had to queue the eps up.

I say WIN

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i252/roey471/0617110456.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/insidethemagic/5355490364/

johno

o this wasn’t said but you can get cold/ice water as well as hot water, at ANY place with drink fountains at WDW. It comes from the fountains so it’s filtered tap water.

o [double hack] instead of waiting at the Main Street Bakery, which gets insane at rope drop (I’ll never understand rushing into MK to get coffee), use the Resort monorail from the TTC, it tends to be less crowded than the express, and you can jump off at the Poly, hit the bar next to Kona in the morning and get REAL coffee. If you are quick about it you can even get back on the same monorail.

Look at it this way too…you didn’t know about Hollywood Studios actual buildings for concept, whereas I did. And yes potter works for you now, what about kids say in 10 years, they won’t get it. just like most kids have no clue what Splash Mountain is. I however remember the movie, own it etc.

Its a matter of the details for each generation. Potter for kids today, Hollywood Studios, those who got it like 10-15 years ago. Or even the Tiki Exotica culture of the tiki room. I am an avid fan of exotica culture and so much was in both versions of the room. Even under new management that resonated to the culture. But many didn’t get it, or it was overlooked etc.

Okay, I am done. LOL Good show this week guys and girls.

If you want to ride the safari (and other attractions) with a vehicle full of photographers, be at WDW October 20-23 for Pixelmania (http://pixelmania.us).

Thanks for all the great content.

I think this is a great idea. My only beef is that people like me from the UK can’t take advantage of this, which means we will miss out on pins and discounts etc. If Disney put a blanket wifi services over property that would be awesome, but for Brits to use data services abroad, with my provider (Vodafone) costs £3 a MB up to 5MB, then £15 for every 5MB after that. So $5 to about $18. This is just to much money for most people on a 14 night holiday, but it seems unfair that we should miss out

A disney parks data API would be interesting. I would love to know how many ride vehicles are on a track at any given time (for example, at Safari’s they on-load/off-load trucks based on ride attendance), would help me to really see just how busy the ride was.

And then there are sites like http://www.triporama.com. I’ve never used them but they’re out there if you do a search on “group trip planning” or something similar.

I just found you podcast a couple weeks ago & I love it!

http://www.amazon.co.jp/o/ASIN/4844324802/airbornecats-22/ref=nosim

One great iPhone use for travel…that cities with great transportation systems such as NY and DC also have great apps that will let you know where the stations are, when the next train arrives, if there are delays, etc. Some media outlets will also have traffic desks that you can follow on Twitter for alerts.

Thanks!

Re: Evernote. You actually CAN share notebooks with the free version you just have to set it up from the native computer app (either Mac or PC). If you’re an Evernote user, I highly recommend installing these because they give you so much more functionality.

Re: Group Texting. I may have misunderstood what you’re trying to do here but the native texting app on iPhone does allow everyone to see what other respond to a group text but only if Group Messaging is on. (Settings –> Messages –> Group Messaging)

Re: Maps. Ed (Katie’s husband) introduced me to the free MapQuest app which even gives voice turn-by-turn directions. I never use my navigation system in my car anymore.

Great Show!

It looked amazing (eyes blinking and mouth flapping n’ such) but made the non-animated Mickey & Minnie look awkward. I hope they update them soon.

Thanks for the great info!!

Look at the URL on the photo. I wonder what hotel http://image1.urlforimages.com/2168/buenapark-lobby.jpg could be…

Also, if the URL isn’t obvious, you can try dropping the photo into tineye.com, and see if the photo is reused somewhere else.

I am sure you did not mean it but you said Virgin is adding strange places like Seattle. Living in Seattle all of my life I have to take offense to that. Virgin is a great way to fly to LA from Seattle but then again so is Alaska. Alaska is really the only way to fly direct from Seattle to Orlando.

PS. Keep waiting for the announcement of a Windows Phone 7 app for touringplans.

In allowing pre booking from home, you are by design ensuring people can book in advance of their trip, and this in turn will lead to people making multiple bookings to keep options open, unless it’s an eliteist system to keep the numbers down or you somehow have a penalty for not attending. For example you have a show in the Magic Kingdom with a capacity of x people per show and y shows per day. You somehow have to distribute that (x times y) fixed availability between not only the several tens of thousands of visitors that walk through the gates, but the many visitors that kept their options open with multiple reservations. Today we have a system where lines are self regulated by people refusing to join them due to length. Imaging the scrum for TSMM fastpasses if they were available online several weeks before. If you’ve got a (say, 180 day) booking window for TSMM, and it fills like the restaurants do, if you can’t get on the right attractions, why would you bother coming to WDW. You already pay a premuim because it’s Disney, if you ‘re given the impression that the top rides are so busy that you can’t ride without a ticket, you’d think twice about a trip. If they limited the available tickets to allow standby lines more movement, then they are limiting the number of people that pre book, and thus watering the promise down.

How would they also cope with breakdowns, do you bump people or do you disappoint them, it’s not as easy to just expect them to find something else if you’ve got prebooking for your other attractions as well.

Much as I like the sound of it, I simply can’t see it working.

1) Charge a fee (what I’ve seen usually is $25 – $50).
2) Book it as part of a package.

Either of these are viable, but booking it as part of a package (most likely how the flight for the China trip is being booked) doesn’t add extra fees for the traveller.

Without going one of these two routes, to the best of my knowledge a travel agent can’t book flights for you. However, they may well be able to find the flight for you and then tell you, “Go here, enter this, book this flight for the best deal.” They may also then watch the flight options for you and based on possible cancellation fees you may have let you know about a different/cheaper flight they found later on for you to book.

I just priced one-way 30 days from now and it was $50 from Raleigh to Orlando in coach. (@Henry – probably less than the 50¢ per mile you’d be wearing and tearing on your car). The train leaves Raleigh ~9pm and arrives Orlando at 10am.

My friend Google told me about this list of the “Ten Best Airfare Alert and Listing Sites”: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20975800/ns/travel-news/

Nate was asking about researching the recommended settings for certain scenarios. I’ve installed an iPhone app called “PhotoCaddy”, and it’s a database for all kinds of scenarios. I haven’t used it a whole lot, but it is handy to have it on my phone when I need it.

Once again Tom Bricker delivers! Thanks for contributing to a very humorous and semi-informative podcast. Listening to the gang while cleaning my lens filters was a very good use of my time.

I’ll be sure to check out WDW Photography @ http://www.wdwphotography.com/ for the best info one can find to treat the affliction of being an obsessive Disney Photography buff.

I will agree that it’s a little frustrating at times, particularly when it seems like it’s taking forever to get between two checkpoints. On the other hand, since you generate a checkpoint every time you find a collectible pin, if it seems like it’s been too long since you had a chance to checkpoint, take it as a sign that you’re missing something.

There’s one Disneyland land that didn’t make it into the game, and that would have been the “one more level” that would have pushed it into 9 or 10 territory for me. The camera challenged me at times, but I’ve yet to play a 3D platformer where there WASN’T some point where the camera was the biggest enemy to fight. On the other hand, the shout-outs to some iconic Disneyland myths are of huge appeal to the hardcore Disney geeks. There’s a huge one about a quarter of the way in that’s tons of fun, and late in the game, you can get access to a certain small area (backstage in real life) that you both really want to enter and feel so wrong about entering.

That’s good storytelling.

For me, the scary was front-loaded and it got less spooky as you went along. Small World, Dumbo….SCARY. Later on, not as much spookiness (aside from some of the characters you meet, which are just….disturbing), but at that point, the plot picks up so it becomes really enjoyable. There’s also an interesting slam against Disney consumerism that was a bit surprising to see (and rather creepy in a different way).

You can tell if you’re going down a Paint or Thinner path based on the color of your Guardians (the little spinning ball thingies). Thinner, they look like creepy germ balls. Paint, they look like little glowing balls of pixie dust goodness. If you’re going down a Thinner path, you also start “shedding” paint out of your own body in little droplets that fly off your body as you move. You also will have some other types of challenges in the game because characters won’t help you as you tick them off.

One thing that I also thought was great is that instead of doing the whole Trophy/Achievement standard setup (ala PS3/XBOX), you earn virtual collectible pins as you go through. It isn’t too hard to rack up a bunch of them, but some can be harder to find and get than others, and some necessitate a second playthrough on the opposite moral path.

In one of my day jobs (editing those $20+ video game strategy guides… please keep buying ‘em so I can keep going to Disney!), I get to see a lot of games come across my desk. In my view, the game is pretty solid, and the camera issues and save point issues are no better or worse than most games out there. The plot, while not as complex and in-depth as something like Kingdom Hearts, still holds a lot of attention, and although the “good ending” was predictable, it was predictable in the same way that the ending of a Disney animated feature is: it makes you feel really good inside.

I’d give it an 8 personally, but mostly because I wish it was another level or two longer. On the other hand, the game is left open for a sequel, and that is something I’d be VERY eager to see, especially if they go to places other than a destroyed-out Disneyland.

I am horrible at it. It took me 5 hours just to get through the jungle cruise and now I am stuck at a spot where you need to get rid of guys and I keep dying. It was so bad that my daughter asked me to stop playing.

So now my husband is going to play for me so I can see the cool stuff.

Only adverse comment is that Henry needs to fix his audio. He speaks so softly that you have to crank up the volume to hear him and then it really blares when the others are talking.

Still, one of the most enjoyable Disney podcasts I listen to. Very informative and entertaining as I listen on my 1/2 hour drive to and from work.

Keep up the great work.

…Show concepts “that Cirque du Soleil could open in Downtown Disney”. The very interesting list of options has been posted below, verbatim.
A show created specifically for kids ages 6-14
A Water Show
An adult sensual cabaret
Another family-friendly show (comparable to La Nouba)
A true classic Cirque du Soleil production
A magic show
A show based on a Hollywood blockbuster movie (like Avatar)
A show based on the Disney characters.

http://blog.touringplans.com/2010/12/17/fastpasses-and-the-rider-exchange-a-powerful-combination-2/

It involves using FP in combination with Rider Exchange aka Switchoff/Baby Toss. Quoting JL “Because the “rider exchange pass” can be used by the adult holding it as well as three companions, this essentially gives a “four for the price of one” scenario in terms of Fastpass currency. The basic idea is that we’re using one one-person Fastpass to get one multi-person rider swap pass. Naturally this give you more “bang for your buck” in terms of covering ground during your hours at Disney.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddindy/3059187637

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2013781685_disneycrowdcontrol28.html

Disney Operational Command Center

http://bbedit.sx.atl.publicus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101228/NEWS0107/12280353/1011&nav_category=#

Rock on and stay amped, betamice!

Geren

And yes, Facebook has an Android app…it is integrated into the OS. My contact list on my phone syncs with Facebook so everyone’s picture from FB appears in my contact list.

My hesitancy using any of these location apps is that I really don’t want everyone on the planet to know that I’m on vacation and that my house is sitting empty at home…a prime target for burglars.

Christine

Loving this gowalla conversation, btw. I just joined gowalla last week when I heard about the venture with Disney. Going to WDW in 11 days so your podcast timing is PERFECT-O!

Keep it up!
Whitney

Paul

http://www.designnews.com/article/46702-Disney_Rides_on_Wireless_Ethernet.php

I like that they’ve used a lot of the shelf technologies by Siemens and others in a unique way to create a new experience.
BTW: Siemens products were used for a lot of the ride and network components, but they were not a sponsor.

As for Mr Potato Head, I completely agree with you guys’ comments. It’s amusing, but only for about 5 minutes, then he gets to be annoyingly repetitive. I would love to see them try to use the Living Character Initiative tech to enhance this. If not Potato head, maybe they could use some of the other characters from the movie. But, they need to do something.

One of the things you guys neglected to say much about was the theme of the queue. Personally, I find the whole queue to be chaotic and cheap feeling. I think the queue has to be one of the less enjoyable that Imagineering has created in quite a while. I think they had a good idea with the toy box concept, but the mix of colors, shapes and the almost boxed-in feeling that comes from the low ceiling makes it a somewhat uncomfortable queue, to say the least. The only thing good about this queue is that it is indoors and air conditioned.

I always take a picture of the closest parking sign to our car w/ my phone.

This way I don’t lose a piece of paper I wrote it down on and have the info w/ me at all times!

Christine

I’m one of those wierdos that listens straight from the site ..can you please fix??

Thanks,
Christine

Thanks geeks!

“Entry constitutes consent for Disney to use any film, video, or likeness of bearer for any purpose whatsoever without payment to the bearer.”

Which sounds like standard boilerplate that we wouldn’t care about… until they actually start making plans to actually DO it, as they seem to be now. Hmmmmmm.

You can find out more info here: http://www.stitchkingdom.com/kidcot/

You don’t need the official passport to participate, many make homemade passport books and my kids use their Guide to the Magic for Kids.

At one time there was also a passport available in Animal Kingdom. Not sure if it is still there or not.

Christine

I’ve noticed this too — “nextgen” littered throughout their websites, urls, code. I do wonder if there is a connection. Our current guess is that they titled their recent web improvements, dating back to early 2009, “nextgen”

Could NextGen actually be more about integration of web services throughout the parks rather than about new types of queues, etc.? Seems like the display of memories on the castle in 2011 could be part of that.

–First I love betamouse! Just stumbled on it and have been having fun listening.
–Second, I want to echo the sitemmap comment. Google likely will figure you out anyway, but I had literally tenfold increases from yahoo and bing after I submitted sitemaps to them too.
–Third, note the “wrong searches” that are bringing people to your site, and add something for them to land on.

For example, I was getting a ton of search-based traffic on my site for the 2011 Disney Military salute.
The problem was that since this has not been announced so far, I had no content about it.
People would look at a few pages on my site, and then go away, presumably frustrated.
So I created a new page that says the salute has not yet been announced. My pageviews per visit for this search term has gone way down–which is a good thing, as it means people are finding out just what they need about this salute.

I do have a Disney Dining app. I think it’s called WDW Dining and it has all the menus. I like it – not sure how up to date it is (it had a refresh not a couple of weeks ago) but while on a flight back home yesterday, I was listening to WDW Today Podcast about sit down restaurants in the Magic Kingdom and was able to look at the menu options of the restaurants they were talking about. Nice, b/c you don’t have to be ‘online’ to see the menus.

This, btw, is my first episode of BetaMouse that I listened to. I’ll be streaming from my iPhone earlier episodes! Thanks!

Whitney

It’s worth creating and submitting a sitemap too I think – although most SEs will still crawl a logically laid-out site fine. Not sure how much use metatag keywords are, but it doesn’t do any harm to add some that are relevant to your content and page title.

It seems to be working OK anyway, most of the big search engines seem to rank my site pretty well for most of the common combinations of searches for the Port Orleans resorts. And Google seems happy with my code, even though I chose to go very “web 1.0″ with my layout I still get a clean bill of health from its HTML checkers, etc.

Andre

At the risk of sounding like a “grumpy old man” (I’m older than you guys, but I’m not that old, and I’m no Luddite – I’m a professional developer and an absolute geek), is tapping away on your phone or laptop, while gathered as a family as portrayed in the final scene, not still considered rude? We’ve all seen this behavior, but I (and I though everyone else) view it as a foible of the young that they will (hopefully) outgrow, while secretly harboring scorn for the parents that ought to know better than to let them do it. Or at least that’s the prevailing opinion among my generation.

But you guys aren’t teenagers – and Katie’s comment left me with the impression that this is considered normal behavior, and that will eventually be universal – and that that’s OK.

Not even sure if this is the appropriate forum, but I thought it an interesting topic.

A thought after listening to your comments…

If Disney can include FastPasses, deals, and other “bonuses” with this app, do you think maybe it could be linked somehow to if you are a WDW Resort guest vs. an off property guest… an AP and/or DVC member, or a Disney Visa cardholder?

This way they could give tiered bonuses to guests based upon their status.

Something to think about…and we can all hope that my 9yo daughter isn’t in college by the time the app is implemented!

Christine
minnie27mouse on Lines

Just found the new Subsonic Radio app in the iTunes Store. It links to their site and is pretty darn sweet! Several different streams to pick from.

LD

However… I had to turn this episode off because you guys were making me feel *SO OLD*! “Amped” entered the dictionary in 1972, “Jazzed” in 1915. Not to mention that there were bookstore chains (Walden, Crown) and fly notes (how you know what’s in the book without reading it) 20 years ago too.

Next time you enter that way back machine, please be kind and fact check. It’s not just the young Disney kids out there listening to you!

On the game front, I have Fairies Lite for DD7 and DD5, but they don’t play it that much, at least not enough for me to consider buying it. But another Disney app they play more is Disney Cards. It’s pretty neat playing Hearts, Go Fish, Crazy 8s, and others, sitting across the table from Minnie or Donald.

I wanted to add that there is a Mouseworldradio app that is free and streams MouseWorld#1 feed. It is awesome.

The other is the LEGO app. My kids love it. It can convert any picture to look like it was made with Legos. The more you tap the picture, the more it changes and makes cool sounds. Enjoy.

Thanks!

I’ve had the Pre for a year now and haven’t had any problems with multitasking crashing the device. Memory is definitely an issue with the original Pre when there are a lot of “cards”(applications) open, but doesn’t tend to crash the phone. I just have to close some cards. The Pre Plus on AT&T fixed this with additional memory.
Lack of apps (~2,800 now) are still an issue and the hardware is becoming very long in the tooth compared to the new iphone and HTC EVO. Hopefully Palm(soon to be HP or HPalm or whatever) will come up with some new hardware this year, or else they’ll have wasted an great OS. I enjoy listening to you guys every week, keep up the good work.

Would be interesting to hear how Henry used technology on his trip to Disneyland Paris. I’ve yet to travel overseas so maybe would just be interesting to me. Did his phone work? GSM/CDMA? GPS? Roaming? 3G availability? Any useful Apps? Is the wi-fi technology the same. Were a lot of people using smartphones in the park? Did he have to carry a bag full of adapters? I saw a lot of tweets, so he must have had something. Just curious.

Apple has introduced 7 specific background services for IOS 4 apps that will allow them to continue tasks after a user switches away from them. These include:

- Background audio – Allows your app to play audio continuously.
- Voice over IP – Users can now receive VoIP calls and have conversations while using another app.
- Background location – Navigation apps can now continue to guide users who are using other apps
- Push notifications – Receive alerts from your remote servers even when your app isn’t running.
- Local notifications – Your app can now alert users of scheduled events and alarms in the background, no servers required.
- Task finishing – If your app is in mid-task when your customer leaves it, the app can now keep running to finish the task.
- Fast app switching – This will allow users to leave your app and come right back to where they were when they left – no more having to reload the app.

As a little side note, Disney has had some experience with beta software. Most recently, the World of Cars online game (http://worldofcars.go.com/) is still in beta. I think the POTC online game also came out in beta. I only know of them doing this with online games like this, so I’m not sure if there are any other occurrences.

Just thought you’d like to know!

Can we do a 24-hour pre-apple Line-up for 4.0?? Come to Palo Alto, and we can join Scoble!!

(can I have more ice for my Kool-Aid, please?)

And yes, I’m going to line up now for iPhone 4.0

- Lou

Oh, and thanks for picking up the way I say ‘Twitter’ – LOL!!!

About tethering… you can already tether your Droid. Install pdanet from the Android market or go to
http://junefabrics.com/android and follow the instructions. No rooting or hacking involved… and it’s FAST! It’ll work with Bluetooth, too.

I’m looking forward to Froyo mostly for flash.

We try to give as many views as possible but its common since all of us have the products we’d lean the Apple way. We did actually record a show all about Froyo and using its features in the parks last week right after it was announced and it will be released this Thursday. (We are a couple weeks ahead of ourselves). Hope you enjoy that one and hope you keep listening!

-Katie

We don’t think labels are very important, but we’re going to keep calling us “tech” focused. 95% percent of our content is non-apple related.

I’m sorry if you don’t dig the Apple fanboy/girl stuff we throw in there, but hey, that’s just how we roll.

Perhaps you should be the Disney/Apple podcast. I see nothing wrong with that and would probably even keep listening. I just think you’re falsely branding your podcast as tech when it’s pretty firmly planted in the Apple camp. Just sayin’.

We could definitely cover this on a future episode.

However, one note: the blogging business is hard. Getting to break-even on hosting / domain fees is hard, even. It’s not easy to create a revenue stream from disney content. Best hope is sponsorships, which you may be able to hook up if you have decent enough traffic!

So you’ve prodded me to go back to my blog. I’ll post a couple more entries then report back with my address.

Also, a topic I was hoping you’d cover is making money with your blog. Unless none of you do? There’s a lot of info online, but it’s hard to tell what’s garbage and what isn’t. Thoughts?

I wanted to let you know about a tool I found that I use for writing/posting my blog entries. It’s Windows Live Writer from Microsoft. They advertise that it will publish to Blogger, WordPress, Typepad and others, and of course theirs as well. It does an okay job of editing and has a few decent plug-ins too. I’ve been using it for a couple months now and like it.

BTW – great podcast. Keep up the good work.

http://betamouse.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/subscribe_with_itunes.gif (under the ‘subscribe!’ text)

I’m glad to see you guys growing.

Betamouse (duh!), MacBreak Weekly, Net@Night, Netcot, Security Now, This Week in Google, This Week in Tech, WDWRadio, WDWToday and Windows Weekly. Not a huge list, but I have enough trouble keeping up with those without adding more!

Thanks for the shoutout in this episode, guys! Keep up the good work

Andy.

I just want to mention to Android users, you must install Google Listen. This will remove the need to use iTunes to sync Audio Podcasts. It’s a shame it doesn’t support Video feeds, but the best part is that you can manage your feeds via Google Reader. Everything downloads to your phone automatically via Wifi or 3G.

For me it has allowed me to listen to daily podcast like BOL (Buzz Out Load) on my way home as it will download the days episode as soon as it’s posted to my phone and ready to go for my drive home. Great app and a must have.

I love Mousetalgia (even though I’ve never been to Disneyland!) WDW Today, and Betamouse of course! The non-Disney podcast I listen to is Dave Ramsey (financial advice).

With my blog, I have 50+ podcasts that I listen to (and I typically actually listen to the vast majority of them). I’ll sync up all the new shows (163 currently in iTunes) every few days…usually after I get a batch of updates. With that many, I usually set my playback speed to 125% and listen to it in the car (40 minute commute each way), walking all over campus, jogging, mowing/yardwork, eating/sleeping/showering/breathing…

Oh, and Nate, I completely agree with you on sometimes wanting to pull your earbuds out when hearing the same story over and over and over after events (D23 Expo, Westfest, etc).

The UK site is at least two redesigns behind the US one, and much of the information on it now is out of date.

Add me to the list of people who’s number 1 request for the WDW site is that the UK version is updated (or at least make the US site more friendly to UK visitors).

Andy.

Also, To Henry, great tip on putting your phone on Airplane mode when entering dark rides. I do this all the time, especially if I know I won’t be using the phone for a while.

I like the Foursquare game aspect with points and becoming mayor of places, but somehow still like Gowalla better.

In regards to privacy, this is one of those apps that I just don’t friend everyone that comes knocking, but I’ve found that if you use the Foursquare or Gowalla website, you can see other users check-ins anyway. So, don’t know where that full privacy is. As with everything else, you can still be found if the person trying to find you has enough will to do so.

An interesting aside… the handicapped rooms at Kidani have no internet access. It was never installed.

I was thinking, do you think the “My Pal Mickey” was a test run of the RFID system that led to Kim Possible?

The primary reason I bring a laptop is so we’re able to take as many pictures/videos as we want and download them each night on to the drive. Saves money on having to buy multiple memory cards.

One of their products I’ve been tempted with is the “Eye-Fi” SD card. It will detect an available WiFi network and upload the photos you’ve taken directly from the camera/card. It’s somewhat similar to the professional photog services you mentioned in the podcast. http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/eye-fi-wifi-memory

“Hey, The Grand Fiesta Tour has no wait right now.”

“Don’t forget to check out the Acrobats in 5 minutes at the front of the pavilion”

In the coming years it will be interesting to see if they expand device based attractions or if they move in some other direction. Can’t wait until more info on the NextGen tech leaks out. I did read somewhere that it is so secretive, that colleagues within the disney company are not allowed to talk to others about it if they are on the project. They are doing their best to keep this thing shut tight. My best guess is that sooner than later we will start to see patent applications showing up…. If they do start putting together location based attractions based on RFID or some hybrid tech they build along with queue-less queues, etc, technology/patent licensing could be a boon to their business

Thanks Mike for listening to the show!

The Kim-unicators are Verizon phones with what look like RFID tags on them. I’ve got to assume they wired the World Showcase with RFID readers and show controllers for the various scenes.

Swear it wasn’t me. I was muting my feed all the time and only unmuting to talk… Perhaps we have a “Phantom of the Keyboard”?

As for the phantom keyboard striker, I’m going to have to randomly throw a keystroke out there just to mess with Henry during the recordings.

Really appreciate it. Stayed tuned. Let me know if you have any show ideas!

Again, best of luck, and welcome to the podcast family!

Mike