“Disney CEO Robert Iger to Step Down as CEO in 2015.”

Huh.

See, I have a Flickr photo sharing page. That’s where I have photos from Dubai, photos from some trips (without people), assorted artsy shots of Portland.

My 950 photos generally get 100-200 views on a given day. So either 200 viewers came to look at one photo, or 100 people came to my gallery and looked at two photos each. Generally it’s more like 8-12 views of certain photos each day.

Oftentimes people end up on my photos after Googled searching for a term that’s one of my keywords – such as “Burj Khalifa”.

Speaking of the Burj, one of my photos of the world’s tallest building had the most views in my gallery, about 11,200 or so as of this week. That makes sense, it’s newsworthy, it’s cool looking, and it’s a nice photo.

My second-most viewed photo was Dubai’s Ibn Battuta Mall, third was Ski Dubai, and so on, but following in the top ten were a few shots of Disneyland Resort Paris – I guess my photos show up when you Google the resort.

And somehow I had 4,132 views on August 8 alone for this photo:

I also had 1142 views for this photo:

In fact, on August 8 nine of my ten most viewed photos were of Hotel Cheyenne.

I had 7,493 views in one day.

It looks like they mostly came from Google, too.

I scoured the news and didn’t find anything (yet) but this is just odd. Something had to have happened there … why would everyone be Googling it at once?

Starts with a bang:

Walt Disney World and its related businesses in Florida generate an estimated $18.2 billion a year in economic activity and more than 1 out of every 50 jobs in the state, according to an impact study paid for by the giant resort and released Wednesday morning.

It ends strongly, too:

It amounted to a cumulative direct economic-impact of $6.3 billion. When researchers modeled in “indirect and induced” impacts from Disney’s operations, they said the impact swelled to $18.2 billion and approximately 161,000 jobs.

It’s pretty much about the upcoming November 23, 2011 film The Muppets.

Odd quote (can’t tell if it’s good or bad?):

“This is the first Muppet production of any size that is really being spearheaded by fans instead of hard-core Muppet professionals,” said Lisa Henson, Jim Henson’s daughter and chief executive of the Henson Company.

I for one can’t wait!

Key quote:

A typical study might have two similar groups of viewers witnessing almost identical content under identical conditions. That way any differences in their reactions can be attributed to the difference in content alone.

The lab gathers biometric data on the viewers: eye-gaze tracking, heart rate, skin conductivity. That information gives insight into their reactions that surveys couldn’t capture. For the future, the lab is looking at brainwave measurements as another tool.

The concept for the Disney lab was born at a Disney ad sales forum. The Mouse and its advertisers found it was becoming very difficult to know which ads were working.

Weird.

The premise is that the Walt Disney Company (then named “Walt Disney Productions”) survived after Walt Disney’s December 1966 death, and actually grew significantly in the period in which is was governed by Roy O. Disney, Walt’s older brother.

What I thought initially was the key quote:

Roy Disney not only furthered the vision he had shared with Walt, he managed Disney through some of its best years. The chart below shows Disney’s stock performance against the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the six years after Walt Disney died. By December 1972, Disney’s stock had appreciated 1,140% from December 1966. The Dow had gained only 30%.

My first thought was, “Wow, that’s a fantastic number!”

But then something caught my eye. Roy O. Disney died in December of 1971.

We all know this because Walt Disney World opened on October 1, 1971, and Roy had a massive stroke fewer than three months later.

Their 1,140% number is from December of 1972.

That’s sheer trickery.

Sure, in December of 1971 Disney stock was still a respectable 700-something-percent above where it was after Walt’s death, but the massive speculation after Roy O. Disney passed is where the inflated 1,140% comes from. Investors, quite honestly, though the company was going up for sale or auction now that both founding brothers were gone.

Could they be more blatant with their goofy numbers?

As far as Apple goes: A) Steve Jobs has no brother, so this comparison is lame, B) Steve Jobs was missing from Apple for a decade between 1985 and 1996 and the company damn-near went bankrupt, and C) since his return Jobs has groomed the COO, Tim Cook, as possible-future-leader – in fact, right now he’s acting-CEO – so they do have a succession plan.

Stupid article.

Check out Olivia Wilde and Alec Baldwin from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Penelope Cruz and Jeff Bridges from Beauty and the Beast, and Queen Latifah as Ursula from The Little Mermaid:

For a minute I was confused, it appeared those Pixar characters had taken over the entire kingdom. But more on that another time.

It’s odd, they’re gearing up for the 40th Anniversary down there (the Magic Kingdom opened on October 1, 1971).

It makes me feel old that I remember the 15th Anniversary so vividly.

Anyway, photos will be along in a few days.

Actually I should say I sprung a Walt Disney World planning video on Liz last night.

The sad part is that it was pretty hokey; even my own interest was waining, so I couldn’t fault Liz when I saw out of the corner of my eye that she had picked up her iPhone and started scrolling through something more interesting.

So I quickly turned it into a sociological experiment: I pointed out that one of the video’s hostesses spoke perfect English, with just a hint of a Mediterranean accent. Was she Greek? Turkish?

The iPhone went to the coffee table. Liz was back in the game.

We determined that her parents emigrated to Canada sometime around the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 when she was young, like say 6 years old.

Liz was hooked. We investigated each time they used African American actors. Asian American actors. Grandparents. Honeymooners.

It’s actually a pretty interesting experiment, because every actor’s casting was a clear choice, likely debated by a team of experts and executives and marketing people.

Here’s the Orange County Register story on it: “Disney park makes impact over 10 years“.

Personally I think the park has its shortcomings – it was cheap from the start, quite frankly – so it’s nice that they’re now investing in renovations and additions. However, I always though that the park had a certain charm to it. I really became quite fond of it in my last few years in California.

At the time it opened I was living in Burbank, and although I had gone to an Employee Preview day in January (see My thoughts on Disney’s California Adventure) I still decided to make the drive down to Orange County on that first Thursday night.

I also wrote about that trip (see Only in California!).

Ten years later I still like my opening:

Imagine an event so special, it’s only taken place seven times over the past 46 years. The next three times it happens, it won’t even be on North America. And I live only 34 miles away from it.

Yesterday, Disney’s California Adventure opened.

Yesterday, I drove down to Anaheim after work.

I mean, c’mon, who knows where the next Stateside Disney Theme Park is going to be? And I’m sure as hell not going to Tokyo DisneySea in 2001, Disney Studios Paris in 2002, or Honk Kong Disneyland in 2005! But I’m here now, so I figured I’d go for it.

Prescient really, as there hasn’t been a new park in the US since!

There hasn’t even been a new one since Hong Kong, and Shanghai Disneyland is still four years out.

Anyway, I took a roll or two of photos that night, too. Here’s one of the Sun Icon fountain, one of my favorite Disney subjects. Sadly it’s on the chopping block and will be removed in the renovations.

Anyway, happy birthday, California Adventure!