Fast Company Magazine article goes deep inside the creation of MyMagic+

Apr 15, 2015 in "MyMagic+"

Posted: Wednesday April 15, 2015 8:00am EDT by WDWMAGIC Staff

Austin Carr at Fast Company Magazine has a must-read article out this morning that provides an incredibly in-depth look into the creation of MyMagic+.

'The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness' is the real, untold story of how MyMagic+ came to life, based on more than 6 months of reporting. Carr speaks to key members from the MyMagic+ development team, Imagineers, and Walt Disney Co. Executives to explain how and why Disney spent 1 billion dollars on the plan to change how guests interact with nearly every aspect of the park experience.

Click through to read The Messy Business Of Reinventing Happiness.

Author Austin Carr is taking part in our discussion forums, so feel free to post if you have a question or want to comment on the article.

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GoofGoofApr 22, 2019

Disney will never release numbers on ROI. I’m sure if pressed by an analyst they will just give a generic answer like “its working as expected”. I have no idea how much benefit they are getting from data collected. Is it driving ancillary sales? Is it helping determine who gets what offer to come back? I haven’t seen any evidence of that but it’s possible it’s happening behind the scenes. I do think it helps with same day logistics and allocation of staff. It’s hard to judge what impact there has been on lines at the park entrances. Security lines are much longer but that’s unrelated to MM+. In my experience the bands don’t always work at the gates but they have CMs nearby to quickly resolve issues. For some reason the FP+ readers seem to work a lot better than the ones at the gates. FP+ itself doesn’t seem to have had the catastrophic impacts on standby wait times many predicted. I think touring plans did an analysis a while back that showed the avg wait time really didn’t change much overall. Not sure if that still holds. I think at times for me the system works a little better than legacy FP. I would prefer going back to no FP at all, but if it has to exist I like FP+ better than legacy FP. It’s a little more upfront planning but makes the day more relaxing without the need to pull tickets from various machines.

RSoxNo1Apr 21, 2019

Switch back to legacy FP rules and I'm a fan.

wdisney9000Apr 19, 2019

bumping this as Im curious to see how people (especially those who participated in the original conversation of this thread) now feel about MM+ and how it pertains to the article. Its been appx 4 years since this article dropped. Have magic bands or MM+ been implemented in any of the other Disney parks? Has Disney released any numbers on the ROI which was heavily toted as a main component? I am sure they have profited from the sale of specialty magic bands and the add ons to them. IMO, the overall experience hasnt changed much aside from the MDE app which does offer several helpful features. But wait times havent exactly improved or gotten worse and crowd redistribution doesnt seem to have much of an affect. Staggs claimed that magic bands decreased wait time at park entrance by 30%. I definitely do not see that. But I would go as far as to say that the data MM+ collects has most likely been a culprit of the cutbacks we have seen in staffing, food/beverage portions and pricing, park hours, CMs at touchpoints at park entrance and several other aspects of the Disney experience. I still that And regardless of what the author stated, I still think that Disney definitely had a hand in making sure this article came out the way they wanted it and most likely comped him in one way or another, especially considering how much more transparent they are nowadays with comps. Not saying it was a puff piece, but definitely guided in a certain direction with a bit of controlled opposition tossed in.

RSoxNo1Jun 10, 2015

As someone that knows both, this is quite amusing. Other than them being polar opposites, you may be on to something.

flynnibusJun 09, 2015

Getting new user titles or banners for them would help tho ;)

wm49rsJun 09, 2015

Here's another gem for you then: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/muppets.900395/page-7#post-6738176 :bored:

wdwmagicJun 09, 2015

A ban does not delete previous posts. It prevents the account being used for any future activity on the forum.

WDW1974Jun 09, 2015

Please tell me someone saved them. He is comedy gold and I just had another 9-hour day at the hospital, so I really want to laugh!

wm49rsJun 09, 2015

Not in this thread. And alas, DisneyPhillip is no more. Most the pity....:cool:

WDW1974Jun 09, 2015

Were there other posts?!?! :):eek::D:cool::hungry:

WDW1974Jun 09, 2015

If he was banned, why am I seeing his post? Not that it wasn't entertaining ... well, until he called me Jim Hill. I can take being called just about anything, but not that. Ever. Ever!

WDW1974Jun 09, 2015

Oh God, the best excuse for retroactive abortion is still here? Seriously, Phil, you can call me all sorts of awful things and my feelings won't be hurt. I'll feed off of them. But when you say I'm Jim Hill, well, you've gone too damn far.:mad::mad::mad: Now, go stalk characters and pretend they are real and call anyone who doesn't blindly love everything about Disney all sorts of nasty things. Oh, and good luck with those Amazons with big feet that you're looking to hook up with on the Twitter. No idea how much laughter and joy your looking for love brought me!:devilish::eek::geek:

wm49rsJun 09, 2015

Yeah, but you got the idea....:grumpy::(:mad::cautious::hungover::grumpy::bawling::devilish::depressed::cry: :facepalm:

LeeJun 09, 2015

Aww...maaaan......I missed it! :mad::mad::mad: