WDWNT Network Announces New Additions to Celebrate 2 Year Anniversary

WDWNT on June 24, 2009

As we kick off the two year anniversary celebration of the WDWNT Network and WDW News Today (running now through August 8th), we are proud to announce a number of exciting new additions and enhancements throughout our family of websites and podcasts. On July 8, 2007, we pledged to find new ways to bring the latest news, information, magic, and fun from the Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts directly to you. Over the past two years, we have kept to that promise, launching some of the most popular entities in the Disney online fan community such as the WDW News Today podcast, The Disney Pincast, and Disneyland News Today. We have also innovated with the only fully interactive Walt Disney World Resort focused podcast, the internet’s only podcasts covering current events at the Disneyland Resort and the huge hobby that is Disney pin trading, and most recently, the newest version of our WDWNTube, the premiere location for streaming and sharing your favorite Disney Park videos. Moving into our third year of operation, we plan on being more innovative, interactive, informative, and entertaining than ever before.

The Podcasts of the WDWNT Network

While we could have never imagined it two years ago, our podcasts have been the heart and soul of everything we do at the WDWNT Network. Making use of the utilities that the remainder of our online community provides, we have used things such as our WDWNT Network Community Forums to enhance our already popular weekly productions. Beginning in July 2008, we kicked off a program we call WDWNT Interactive, allowing WDW News Today Podcast listeners to vote for the topics discussed in their favorite segments on the show. The popularity of that program has been unparalleled and has made us sure that every segment we air is one that a majority of our audience will find useful or entertaining. Based on this success, we are proud to announce that the Disneyland News Today Podcast will launch a similar service called DLNT Interactive, where listeners will be able to head to the community forums and vote for the segments that would like to hear on that weekly program. DLNT Interactive will be officially launching on July 2, 2009. In addition to these interactive features, all three of the WDWNT Network produced podcasts offer multiple services on the WDWNT Network Community Forums. WDW News Today and Disneyland News Today Podcast listeners can already view show notes and discuss the shows with those who produce it weekly by posting and reading under corresponding sections. Listeners of the Disney Pincast can not only discuss the show, view show notes, and weekly pin releases while on the forums, but can also discuss Disney pin trading and other Disneyana collecting (such as Vinylmation) while visiting. All of these features make a visit to the WDWNT Network Community Forums a must and enhance the listeners experience each and every week.

Focusing only on the podcasts of the WDWNT Network, some popular segments of these shows are leaving and returning, and a number of new offerings are just on the horizon. The WDW News Today Podcast is proud to be introducing two exciting new segments, titled “The Golden Age” and “World’s Finest”. “The Golden Age” will be a quest to find out which point in Walt Disney World history could be considered the best overall period of the “Vacation Kingdom’s” existence. The “World’s Finest” segment will provide listeners with plenty of opinions and banter, as the WDWNT Podcast team tries to figure out what the very best of Walt Disney World truly is. Two classic segments that haven’t been heard in quite a while will also be returning, in “Back to the Future” and “Disney Don’t Forget the Lyrics”. Since it’s debut in January 2008, “Back to the Future” has allowed the WDWNT Podcast crew to educate listeners on the past, present, and future of Walt Disney World while honoring a favorite film series of the same name. “Disney Don’t Forget the Lyrics” was the first trademark game show on the WDW News Today Podcast and has set an example that many other Disney fan podcasts have tried to imitate, but have been unable to duplicate, a game where contestants must remember the lyrics to the classic songs of the Disney Parks. Over on the Disneyland News Today Podcast, the “What Were They Thinking” segment will find a new home. In this segment, the DLNT Staff will look at the various decisions made by Disneyland Management both past and present and try to figure out “What Were They Thinking?!?”. This segment will also be part of the all new DLNT Interactive program being introduced

At many times during our continuous evolution, we have brought you some new and experimental projects, one of the longer-lasting and well known was “Your Ear to the World”. On June 10th, 2009, the “Your Ear to the World” podcast had its final episode. This was a fun and innovative project for us over the last year, but we have decided to retire it to make room for a more unique method of bringing you audio experiences. The name of our latest and perhaps most exciting project to date is WDWNTunes.

Introducing WDWNTunes!!!

What is WDWNTunes? WDWNTunes is a streaming online radio station that will bring listeners audio from the Disney Parks, as well as exclusive content from the WDWNT Network. The main site for WDWNTunes will also provide listeners with a chat room, a full listing of our current audio library, a broadcasting schedule (coming soon!), and much more. In addition, WDWNTunes will be the new home of our WDWNT Live! shows, an opportunity to join us join us each month for a live interactive podcast. The first WDWNT Live! presented on WDWNTunes will be taking place on July 8, 2009, and will be a special show to commemorate our two year anniversary. Be sure to stay tuned for more details on this special show as we get closer to that date. In the mean time, you can find WDWNTunes online at www.wdwntunes.com and follow WDWNTunes on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wdwntunes and on Facebook at this link.

More To Come

If all of this news wasn’t enough from the WDWNT Network, we invite you to join us for the Town Square Talk segment during Episode 100 of the WDW News Today Podcast and Episode 70 of the Disneyland News Today Podcast for a few more pieces of news, as well as a blockbuster special announcement that will shake the very foundation of the WDWNT Network.

WDW News Today and the WDWNT Network is proud to present this full line-up of changes and additions to you, our audience, and hope you will continue to be a part of our still growing community. We are truly thankful for your devotion to our websites and podcasts and would like you to know that the last two years would have never been possible without your support. We hope you are as excited as we are about these new efforts in continuing to “Bridge the Gaps Between You and the World”.

Tom Corless
Owner of the WDWNT Network

WDWNT Podcast Episode 94 Now Available for Download

WDWNT on May 17, 2009

Join me, Tom Corless, and a cast including Scott Smith, Chris Lastrapes, Kyle Duffield, John Rick, and Lee Arenberg for a variety show that celebrates the Walt Disney World Resort and its many fans. So what are you waiting for? Let’s celebrate another week of Walt Disney World information and fun on the WDW News Today Podcast!!!

To kick off episode 94, we have your Walt Disney World Resort News and Rumor Report. In this latest report, we will be discussing an exclusive D23 member event coming to the Walt Disney World Resort later this month, what’s “Up” at the Magic of Disney Animation in Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and how you can now get your share of Disney theme park merchandise at the click of your mouse.

Following that, we have a huge interview conducted by myself and my fellow Disney Pincast co-host John Rick, with a huge star from the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Lee Arenberg. The interview is a bit lengthy, but I have a feeling you’ll enjoy the insights into just what it’s like to be an actor in a major film series, as well as being a part of a Disney theme park attraction.

To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows.

This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on all mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.

WDWNT Network Exclusive Interview with Pirates of the Caribbean’s Lee Arenberg

WDWNT on May 15, 2009

pincast-lee

We here at the WDWNT Network are proud to announce that we were able to obtain an interview with actor Lee Arenberg, who played the part of Pintel in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The interview was conducted by John Rick and Tom Corless for The Disney Pincast, but will also air on some of the other podcasts of the WDWNT Network this weekend. In the interview, Arenberg tells us about working on the epic Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy, being a part of a Disney attraction, the importance of the movie premieres inside Disneyland, and some of his other work notable works, including Seinfeld, Star Trek, and a host of other shows. You can hear the interview now by listening to episode #60 of the Disney Pincast (download on iTunes or listen through the site), or you can wait until Sunday when the interview will air on the WDW News Today Podcast and the Disneyland News Today Podcast.

WDWNT Network Exclusive Interview with Pirates of the Caribbean’s Lee Arenberg

WDWNT on May 15, 2009

pincast-lee

We here at the WDWNT Network are proud to announce that we were able to obtain an interview with actor Lee Arenberg, who played the part of Pintel in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The interview was conducted by John Rick and Tom Corless for the Disney Pincast, but will also air on some of the other podcasts of the WDWNT Network this weekend. In the interview, Arenberg tells us about working on the epic Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy, being a part of a Disney attraction, the importance of the movie premieres inside Disneyland, and some of his other work notable works, including Seinfeld, Star Trek, and a host of other shows. You can hear the interview now by listening to episode #60 of the Disney Pincast (download on Itunes or listen through the site), or you can wait until Sunday when the interview will air on the WDW News Today Podcast and the Disneyland News Today Podcast.

Special WDWNT Podcast Episode 92 Now Available for Download

WDWNT on May 3, 2009

Join me, Tom Corless, and a cast including Justin Heyman, Anthony Yacullo, Scott Smith, and Luke Manning for a variety show that celebrates the Walt Disney World Resort and its many fans. So what are you waiting for? Let’s celebrate the 20th anniversary of Disney’s Hollywood Studios and another week of Walt Disney World information and fun on the WDW News Today Podcast!!!

To kick off our Disney’s Hollywood Studios 20th anniversary special, we’ll have another edition of “What were they thinking?”, where we try to examine why certain decisions are or were made by Walt Disney World management. This time around, we’ll try and figure out why Disney would build real, working production facilities in central Florida and why the concept came to an end just a few years later.

Following that and in keeping with a long-running WDWNT tradition, we will present an audio tribute to the Studios that is sure to evoke some fond memories and some listener karoake.

Finally, to conclude our special program, we will wrap-up our long running countdown of the 20 Biggest Moments in Disney’s Hollywood Studios History as voted by you with a look at what took the #2 and 1 spots on the list and just how important these two pivotal events are in our opinions.

To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows.

This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on most mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.

WDW News Today Announces Exciting New Features

WDWNT on April 22, 2009

The WDWNT Network has once again reached out to our audience and made changes and additions based on their thoughts. After collecting responses from our 2009 annual survey, we have decided to add and enhance a few features of the WDW News Today website.

The first major addition is a new calendar function powered by Google Calendar. After testing some alternative calendars over the last few weeks, we have determined this to be the calendar to meet our needs and the needs of our viewers, providing a clean, easy to read layout that will allow us to post Walt Disney World Resort and WDWNT Network events regularly. The Google Calendar also provides some useful features that the other candidates did not, such as the ability to copy events to your own Google Calendar, print an agenda of the calendar’s upcoming events, and provide weekly and monthly viewings based on preference. Our new calendar can be reached by clicking the calendar button in our navigation bar on WDW News Today.

The second major addition is that of a text-based WDW News Today Newsletter, carrying our latest Walt Disney World news headlines straight to your email box. So many of you responded that you wanted news by email, that we could not deny the request. This is only the first version of the newsletter we will be presenting, as we are already actively looking to make some enhancements to the system in the not-so-distant future. To subscribe, just simply enter your email address into the subscribe box in the left sidebar of the WDW News Today website.

The final update will certainly make our many Twitter followers happy. While most of the WDWNT Team is at the Walt Disney World Resort next week, we will be frequently updating the WDWNT Twitter with text and pictures bringing you the latest happenings from around the parks (including coverage of the 20th Anniversary events at Disney’s Hollywood Studios May 1st). If you are not following WDWNT on Twitter yet, be sure to go to twitter.com/wdwnt and start following us today!

For our Disneyland News Today audience, don’t fret, the calendar and newsletter functions will be rolling out to the DLNT website sometime in the next week.

We hope you enjoy all of these new additions to WDW News Today!

Thank you for your continued support,
Tom Corless
Owner of the WDWNT Network

Special WDWNT Podcast Episode 90 Now Available for Download

WDWNT on April 21, 2009

Join your hosts, Tom Corless and Luke Manning, and a cast including Justin Heyman, Anthony Yacullo, Scott Smith, Kenny Siegel, Shawn Hutchinson, and Kyle Duffield for a variety show celebrating the 45th anniversary of the 1964 New York World’s Fair. This week’s show is a special episode honoring Walt Disney’s contributions to the fair, including Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Ford Magic Skyway, the General Electric Carousel of Progress, and “it’s a small world”.

To kick off the episode, we have Disneyland News Today’s signature segment, “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” . This week, we take a look at at one of the greatest Disney attractions of all time that debuted at the World’s Fair, “it’s a small world”. Let’s see if we can get through this segment without getting the song stuck in our heads.

After that, we’ll have another edition of “What were they thinking?”, where we will try to examine why certain decisions are or were made by Disney management. This time around, we will try to figure out why a number of decisions were made regarding Disney’s involvement in the 1964 World’s Fair and the ultimate fate of the attractions created for the historic event.

To end this special episode, we’ll have the debut of our newest segment, “World’s Finest”. In this round-table discussion, we will pick our favorite Disney-made ride vehicle, characters, music and attraction from the fair.

To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows

 

This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on most mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.

2009 WDWNT Network Guest Survey

WDWNT on March 31, 2009

We here at the WDWNT Network would deeply appreciate it if you would take a few minutes of your time and tell us what you think about the current state of the WDWNT Network of Disney inspired websites and podcasts (WDW News Today, Disneyland News Today, the WDW News Today Community Forums, the WDWNTube, etc.). We will be using your survey responses to guide the direction of our websites and podcasts over the next year in order to better inform and entertain you. Thank you very much for your time and support.

We ask that you please take a few moments and click HERE to take the short 5 minute survey.

WDWNT Podcast Episode 83 Now Available for Download

WDWNT on March 2, 2009

Join me, Tom Corless, and a cast including Jason Diffendal, Justin Heyman, Brian Martsolf, and Luke Manning for a variety show that celebrates the Walt Disney World Resort and its many fans. So what are you waiting for? Let’s celebrate another week of Walt Disney World information and fun on the WDW News Today Podcast!!!

To kick off episode 83, we have your Walt Disney World Resort News and Rumor Report. In this week’s report, we will be talking about the opening of a very special museum at Epcot this summer, how you can get backstage and on-stage at the American Idol Experience attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and just how you can speed up the check-in process for your next Walt Disney World Resort hotel stay.

Town Square Talk is also back this week, highlighting the hottest topics around our WDWNT Network of websites and podcasts. On this trip down Main Street WDWNT, we have all the details on the latest videos available through the WDWNTube Disney Parks video site, the return of the very popular Back to the Future segment on this show, and who will be filling in as the new host of the Your Ear to the World podcast

Finally, to end this weeks program, we continue our countdown of the 20 Biggest Moments in Disney’s Hollywood Studios History as voted by you with a look at what took the #11 spot on the list. We’ll also be examining just how important this moment is in the near 20 year history of the park.

To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows

This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on most mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.

mcdonald’s all stars reopening 2009 photo recovery_9

WDWNT on February 17, 2009

Join me, Tom Corless, and a cast including Jason Diffendal, Justin Heyman, Chris Lastrapes, and Luke Manning for a variety show that celebrates the Walt Disney World Resort and its many fans. So what are you waiting for? Let’s celebrate another week of Walt Disney World information and fun on the WDW News Today Podcast!!!

To kick off episode 81, we’ll have your Walt Disney World Resort News and Rumor Report. In this week’s report, we’ll be talking about the brand new “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It!” Street Party now performing at the Magic Kingdom, a new exhibit that will be “added” to Innoventions at Epcot this fall, and what the Disney Vacation Club will be opening in Long Island, New York, this summer.

After that, we have the fifth edition of “What Were They Thinking?”, where we will try to examine why certain decisions are made by Walt Disney World management. This time around, we’ll be discussing the creation of “Tomorrowland 1995″ at the Magic Kingdom and what lead to it’s ultimate destruction. We’ll also discuss the Tomorrowland of today and what they were thinking bringing characters into the future.

Finally, to end this weeks program, we continue our countdown of the 20 Biggest Moments in Disney’s Hollywood Studios History as voted by you with a look at what took the #13 spot on the list. We’ll also be examining just how important this moment is in the near 20 year history of the park.

To subscribe to the WDW News Today podcast on iTunes, go to this link. If you do not have iTunes, visit our Podcast Download Directory to download or listen to all of our shows

This episode is also available in an enhanced version. An enhanced podcast is a podcast with added features that standard podcasts don’t have. Enhanced podcasts include many features like Chapter listings, this lets you skip through chapters or see what is in store for this weeks show. Enhanced podcasts also have images to let you differ the chapters by. Enhanced podcasts have one negative feature, you can not play them on most mp3 players. The file format for this is a .m4a which can play on Apple’s iPod and Microsoft’s Zune. You will also need iTunes or Windows Media Player to be able to skip through chapters. If you need or would like the standard edition, download the normal edition listed below this file both on Itunes and in our podcast directory.