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Source:Mashable!

While Disney devotes most of its resources to entertainment for the youth of the world to consume and grow zealous over, the people dishing dollars for the company’s attractions - from theme parks to movies to books to toys and, more recently, online destinations - are naturally the adults of the world. So, after having constructed a thoroughly glitzy network on the Web called DxD (short for Disney Xtreme Digital), it has deemed it appropriate to launch another space, Disney Family, designed for use by “moms and dads to share the pride of being a parent, and have a lot of fun while (they’re) at it!”

The differences between Disney Family and Xtreme Digital are stark. While XD has no pretensions of being reserved in terms of the sheer volume of stuff presented for users’ eyes and ears, Disney Family is more basic. Its layout and color wheel are far more gentle on the senses. It is clearly meant for generations of people responsible for the those who spend their hours of playtime in XD land.

Disney Family is, in short, a content network. It does hold social aspects, mind you. But a quick glance at where among the main menu of options the ‘community’ tab is listed shows what Disney is prioritizing on the site.

Not that its slight understatement of the community feature is a bad thing. Disney is after all good with delivering material - whatever material it might be. So it is naturally going to trumpet reading material wherever it can. Sections for Food, Parenting, Travel, and Entertainment are all filled with things that typical Disney-aware family would likely appreciate. And the way each section is structured makes for an easy time. Dare I say appreciable as well?

Even if the Disney Family community isn’t writ large upon the site’s front page, it is there among the links. And like other facets accessible across the broader network, it is elegantly designed. Nothing alpha or beta about it, really. Everything seems to work as it should, and it’s all very intuitive to browse and operate. The only quibble I can make at this moment is that the site is very slow to load. Whether an intense traffic surge is to blame or that Disney Family requires more work behind the stage, I’m not sure. But going about the network is definitely not something I would currently call a speedy experience.

Also, though the sign-up process is simple enough, it is a bit tedious. Unless you desire to have your inbox stuffed with daily and weekly newsletters of all sorts, you’ll be unchecking at least a half dozen boxes before you’ve agreed to Disney’s terms and hit the registration button. And for those who tend to scramble through sign-ups on the Web, Disney Family by default selects female gender before male. So, all the dads out there, watch where you click. Of course, you can change this if you mistakenly choose wrongly out of habit of ignoring such particularities.

In all, I approve of Disney Family. I would certainly wish the site performance to be greatly improved, and soon, but the design itself is commendable. If Disney’s promotion of the new venue is effective, it will presumably fare very well.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Disney Acquires Club Penguin in $700 Million DealDisney’s Online “Theme Park” Heads to the UKDisney Acquires iParenting MediaDisney to Launch Social Network for Nintendo GamersDisney Launches XD with Parental ControlsVirtual Visits To Where Dreams Come True (No, It’s Not Neverland)Bring It On…Line. ABC’s CheerCamp Rallies Support for Films.

Source:Mashable!

Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: MeGlobe

20-word Description: MeGlobe is a Web-based instant messaging application that provides real-time language translation.

CEO’s Pitch: Although technology has exponentially increased the rate of globalization, language barriers still keep us worlds apart. MeGlobe allows the global online community to communicate with each other and collaborate across language borders. Our free, Web-based instant messaging application lets you to type in your own language and instantly translates it into the language of whomever you are chatting with.

Users can also make contributions to the translations MeGlobe performs. These contributions are used to teach MeGlobe to become a better translator. Every correction from the community brings us closer to our goal of erasing language barriers.

Mashable’s Take: It goes without saying that the best way to communicate across linguistic barriers is to learn tongues of others (and vice versa). The ability to speak multiple languages, either for business or personal use, or both, can be of limitless value. But of course it is hardly realistic to think we can know all. So it is good news when something of MeGlobe’s design makes its way to the public stage.

First introduced as a limited public beta in early summer, MeGlobe is now open to anyone who wishes to use it. It is free, and in addition to its support for Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Russian, Dutch (Netherlands), Greek, Korean, Arabic, Swedish, Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simplified, it recognizes two French flavors, French standard and French Canadian, and four - yes, four - English labels, including American, UK, Australian, and Canadian.

The interface of MeGlobe may take some getting used to. Its features are heavy on gloss. Some visitors I imagine won’t enjoy this. But others will probably think little or nothing of its visual attributes. The powers below the surface are what will have one’s lasting attention. And what makes MeGlobe particularly interesting, as with other language-based learning/translation startups of recent construction, is that it is very much user driven.

Granted, it appears to be a very small operation at present. All MeGlobe rooms appeared vacant in my personal trial with the service. But if you know who it is you wish to speak with, it may well turn out to be a convenient meeting ground.

I should note that I came across a bug of some kind when using the service. When browsing its features in my Firefox 3 installation, my cursor would seem to occasionally disappear beneath the surface of the main window in MeGlobe. Even so, aspects of the site could still be triggered and would continue to function. Closing the tab for MeGlobe and returning to the website did fix the issue, of course, and I was unable to replicate the problem, so I imagine your experience will likely be a decent one, more or less.

As it is freely accessible, I would advise giving MeGlobe a try. It is certainly new and requires some more attention on the development side as well as its user recruitment efforts. But for starters it seems rather promising. And as the CEO’s note made clear, the service is open to user contributions, too, so if you wish to offer some expertise as a sort of community service, you can do so. We here at Mashable hope to see more languages added to the fold. As a social construct, MeGlobe could grow to relatively popular proportions. It really only needs the right balance of members and backend managers to facilitate expansion.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under social networking, search, web, social software, IM, translation, Web2.0 Startups, Web apps, Instant messaging, StartupReview, Los Angeles, Channels, MeGlobe, languages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.