The Walt Disney Company will finally be unveiling a newly refurbished Disney.com site — aimed at delivering a robust entertainment experience — which the digital division of the company has been working on for a year.

In an interview Friday, Disney Interactive co-President James Pitaro said that the new site has been built from the “ground up,” keeping in mind delivery to multiple devices, especially increasingly popular tablets and smartphones.

Making such a dramatic shift to what he called the “digital gateway to Disney” is not without risk, he said.

“The new Disney.com is a much cleaner and more elegant site and a significant change from the legacy site, and any time you make material changes to a Web experience that has a large audience, you have potential to unsettle some users,” said Pitaro, who came to Disney from Yahoo in late 2010. “That said, we take a lot of pride in the new entertainment experience we’ve created and are confident that the multi-platform site will both further engage our current Guests and bring in new ones.”

The rollout began with a video beta site appearing in May.

Pitaro said the load time on the site had been drastically improved, along with the new minimalist design, which “puts Guests first.”

(“Guests” is how Disney refers to its customers, wherever they are.)

Instead of positioning the site as the marketing vehicle it has been in the past, Pitaro said the new Web and mobile destination is much more of the entertainment experience throughout.

That has meant getting fresh content from a wide range of Disney units, from its high-profile theme parks to its television channel to its movie studio. Content from its ABC and ESPN divisions are not part of the site, but both Marvel and Pixar are included.

The new site does not mean Disney’s online efforts will be less available outside the site. The company has a large-scale relationship with Google’s YouTube, for example, as well as being partial owner of the Hulu premium video site.

“We still need to take Disney where our Guests are,” said Pitaro.

Disney’s efforts online in the past have been decidedly mixed — from its doomed Go.com portal in Web 1.0 to its highly successful Club Penguin acquisition many years later.

Thus, said Pitaro, what is now appearing today on Disney.com — a new front page, movie and music pages — is still a work in process, with more changes coming.

Here are some screenshots of the new look:

This morning, the bookseller offered a skeleton picture of the service, with more details to come later this fall. For a little background, Barnes & Noble said in April it was spinning off its Nook unit into a new Microsoft-backed venture, though Nook is currently still a Barnes & Noble subsidiary.

Here’s what you need to know about the company’s latest digital initiative:

• It will be called Nook Video, and it will be a part of the online Nook Store. Barnes & Noble says the video service will run on Nook devices, tablets, smartphones and “smart” TVs, though it has declined to say which specific operating systems it will be available on.
• The video streaming service is not a subscription service. It will offer HD and SD movies and TV shows. As with Google Play and Amazon’s Instant Video service, assets will be available both as rentals and as downloads (most 24-hour movie rentals I’ve seen on Google and Amazon range from $2.99 to $3.99). The content will be stored in the user’s Nook Cloud, which the company introduced a couple months ago.
• How many movies and TV shows can I access, you ask? Barnes & Noble didn’t give numbers, but says it will be offering classics, popular movies and TV shows from studios like Disney, HBO, Sony, Starz and Warner Bros. Entertainment. These include Disney-Pixar’s “Brave,” “Toy Story 3,” “The Hangover,” the “Harry Potter” movies, “The Dark Knight,” “The Daily Show,” “Dora the Explorer,” “The Walking Dead,” “True Blood” and more. Also: “Breaking Bad.” Because if you can’t get your Hogwarts and Hangover with a twist of Walter White, I don’t know if this could even be considered a streaming media service. Now, what it really needs to get started is Shades of Gray: The Movie ….
• Nook Video will also create and store digital copies of the DVDs that you normally play on UltraViolet and Blu-ray players. So if you purchase a Blu-ray or UV DVD and sync your console with your Nook Video account, it will create a digital copy in your Nook Cloud. You could then, theoretically, watch it on another gadget, via the Nook app.
• We don’t know when exactly this is launching, except for “this fall” in the U.S. It will hit the U.K. this holiday season, though, again, it’s unclear whether the full features of the service will be available abroad. On Google Play, for example, rentals are available in the U.K., Australia, France, Spain and Japan, among other places, but the ability to purchase movies is only available in the U.S.

Whether Nook finds a niche as a legitimate video service for consumers, amid stiff competition, remains to be seen. But it’s worth noting that Nook Video, tied to the Nook Cloud service, sounds like the first practical way for Nook hardware owners to grab and store video on the device. It’s not that Nooks don’t have storage capabilities; the problem was, prior to this, users had to “sideload” media onto the Nook from their PCs or tablets, as AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka explains well here.

Not to be outdone, Samsung Electronics has announced its own Android-based digital camera with a newer operating system and greater optical zoom than Nikon’s Android “smartphamera.”

It’s called, of course, the Galaxy Camera.

The Galaxy Camera is heavier than the Nikon, measuring 2.7 inches by .75 inches, and weighing 10.7 ounces. It runs on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, with a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor and eight gigabytes of onboard storage, with an SD card slot for more.

It has a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, boasts a 21x optical touch zoom lens, and has a 4.8-inch HD LCD screen. It also has voice control, which lets the photographer shoot pictures and zoom in and out using voice commands.

Some other notable specs of the camera: It includes built-in editing features and automatic cloud backup, shoots full HD video and has Bluetooth capabilities in addition to Wi-Fi.

The Galaxy Camera was unveiled today at the IFA Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin, Germany. Its price point and launch date are still unclear, but I’ll update when I have more information.

But do companies with super-smart, digitally-savvy CMOs really outperform their market peers?

Take a look at the share-price growth over the past year of three public companies with cutting-edge CMOs — Volkswagen, UPS and Comcast — and then compare this growth to the industry benchmark in their respective categories.

In the last six months, Volkswagen consistently outperformed Ford, GM, Fiat, Volvo, and other competitors. Although it’s impossible to pinpoint just how much CMO Tim Mahoney has contributed to that market success since he joined as CMO one year ago, it’s clear he’s doing something right. Volkswagen recently reported a 35 percent increase in March 2012 sales, the auto maker’s best first quarter since 1973. Likewise, UPS has also recently outperformed its fiercest competitor, FedEx; similarly, Comcast has outperformed its nearest competitors, Time Warner and Cablevision.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t tip my hat to Red Bull’s amazing digital marketing efforts, but, alas, they’re not a publicly traded company).

So what are these companies doing right? Here are three strategies to consider that can help boost shareholder value:

Pair memorable creative with effective targeting
Volkswagen, UPS, and Comcast have all turned to creative and targeting to gain consumer attention. In a world of constant distraction, getting a consumer’s attention has become increasing difficult. Consumers are overwhelmed by hundreds of ads thrown their way on a daily basis. By staying on the cutting-edge of creative as well as targeting the right audiences, companies can break through all the clutter and build brand loyalty.

For example, Volkswagen’s “Star Wars”-themed “The Force” 2011 Super Bowl ad wasn’t just hyper-cute and creative; it became the most-shared Super Bowl video of all time. And though its 2012 follow-up video, “The Bark Side,” didn’t reach the same sharing heights, it still has a place in the viral video hall of fame. Not surprisingly, Volkswagen also has 1.2 million “Likes” on Facebook, compared to 540,000 for Subaru, another car brand consumers love to love. This is a prime example of great creative and targeting the right audience to drive viral distribution.

UPS tapped into the hype around this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament. They ran an ad entitled “The Pass,” that replayed the 1992 Duke and Kentucky winning shot. In tandem, the company relayed their “Logistics” messaging, highlighting the company’s ability to get something precisely where it needs to be at precisely the right time. Though controversial to some (mainly Kentucky fans), and beautiful to others (me, as a Duke grad, and just about all other basketball lovers), this ad was certainly memorable. Again, well-conceived creative with the right targeting online to drive distribution.

With a similar approach, Comcast pokes fun at consumers’ increasing appetite to consume content. To the tune of the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” Comcast launched their new streaming service with a creative ad entitled, “Stream, Stream, Stream.”

Engage consumers where they already are
Today’s CMOs must strive to be everywhere their prospective clients are consuming media, in order to stay top of mind. The average U.S. consumer is spending 32 hours a month online, with much of that time — 22 percent — spent on social networking sites. Companies need to connect with consumers on their turf.

At UPS, one of the reasons for the company’s success stems from CMO Alan Gershenhorn’s commitment to use social media for customer service. The company set up a special Twitter feed @UPSHelp to answer customers’ delivery and other questions in real time. Since UPS launched the Twitter program, the company has accumulated more than a million positive impressions from customers who give grateful replies.

Comcast has also jumped on the social customer service bandwagon. The company’s manager of customer service strategy and operations, Bill Gerth, connects with customers in real time via the Twitter feed @comcastbill and @comcastcares.

Additionally, the company’s official customer-focused blog, Comcast Voices, invites customers to comment on any aspect of Comcast’s service or company strategy. Comcast has opened itself up to any type of feedback, including criticism, and shown that it really cares what its customers think — so much so that it has incorporated customers’ ideas into new products and services.

Think multichannel
Standout companies are also breaking ground through the adoption of multichannel campaigns. Crain’s BtoB Magazine, in conjunction with Bizo, recently conducted a study that highlights the importance of expanding the marketing mix. However, according to the study, 63 percent of respondents stated that their current mix of programs does not meet sales demand.

UPS, on the other hand, has recently figured out how to successfully implement a multichannel campaign, and their “We ♥ Logistics” initiative takes it to a whole new level. According to the company, the campaign included TV, print, out-of-home, digital, display, direct mail and email — and it was the first time in U.S. history that UPS had a unified global communications and ad strategy. They are still rocking this campaign today, too.

For the UPS campaign, consumers are driven to the campaign’s microsite, www.thenewlogistics.com, with the goal of bringing the benefits of logistics to life. Likewise, Volkswagen, in keeping with the “Star Wars” theme, created a microsite for their “The Force” campaign, where people could create digital invites to their Super Bowl Party, which included a customized version of the movie’s famous opening crawl.

All of these public companies are innovators — with CMOs who embrace digital technologies to deliver what customers want, and who understand that social media is the glue of their entire digital marketing strategy. This relentless focus on the customer, innovative creative and multichannel strategies have helped contributed to above-average stock market performance.

Russell Glass is a serial technology entrepreneur, having founded or held senior positions at four venture-backed technology companies. Before founding Bizo, Russ led the marketing and product management teams at ZoomInfo, a business information search engine, where he sharpened his B2B marketing skill set and developed his love for business data.

Nikon has heard your call.

The Japan-based camera and lens maker just announced the Nikon Coolpix S800c, a 16-megapixel, Wi-Fi-equipped digital camera powered by an Android operating system, with full access to the Google Play app store.

Other specs in the Nikon release: The S800c has a 10x optical zoom, with a backside-illuminated CMOS image sensor, a capacitive 3.5-inch OLED touchscreen monitor, built-in GPS technology and shoots video in full HD 1080p. It also has the ability to tether to a phone or tablet via Wi-Fi if there is no network available.

The lightweight camera weighs 6.5 ounces and is 1.1-inch thick. It officially hits the market in September, costs $349.95 and is now available for preorder, in either black or white.

While it’s a first for Nikon, it’s not the only Android-based digital camera in the works. Earlier this year, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Polaroid showed off its own Android-based digital camera, as PCWorld notes here.

Over the past couple years, camera makers have been adding Wi-Fi capabilities and high-performance CMOS sensors to their camera bodies, in an effort to compete with ever-improving smartphones, which are slowly munching away at the digital camera market. Some have developed apps that share directly with smartphones, though that means the consumer is still carrying two devices.

But, to quote Yoda, Wi-Fi does not an easy-share camera make (okay, maybe Yoda didn’t say that, but he might wisely agree). Some camera touchscreens are still resistive, which means they require a firm press to navigate the camera; users have had to painstakingly type on a camera’s small screen to, for instance, send a photo via email. And speaking of sharing, the native apps on Wi-Fi-enabled cameras can be lacking.

The Nikon camera — smartphamera? — seems like a step toward a familiar, intuitive operating system on a piece of hardware that’s actually meant to take good photos.

Interested buyers should note, however, that the operating system on the Nikon Coolpix S800c is an older one: Android 2.3, or Gingerbread.

And the fact that it’s running a mobile phone operating system makes me wonder whether the camera’s software upgrades automatically, whether it’s vulnerable to hackers or the malware that plagues Android, and how much apps running in the background will impact camera battery life.

The Coolpix S800c has a rechargeable, lithium ion battery that’s measured according to the standards of the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA), so it’s measured in pictures taken, not hours. This Coolpix claims a battery life of approximately 140 shots.

We’ll have more answers when the smartphamera officially comes to market in September.

Fortunately, there’s an app that lets you select and pay for jukebox songs from your smartphone — and allows other people in the venue to vote on the songs, too.

It’s called Roqbot, and it just nabbed $1.2 million in seed funding from Google Ventures and Detroit Venture Partners.

Roqbot, which launched at the SXSW Interactive Festival in 2011, is a free app for iPhone and Android smartphones.

So far, only 40 venues around the U.S. have installed Roqbot-friendly digital devices — a small number compared to the footprint of something like TouchTunes. But Roqbot is not limited to bars: Gyms, barbershops and even a go-kart track have taken advantage of it, too. Roqbot says it has access to about six million music tracks, and that the company covers the licensing costs for the venues.

It can cost anywhere from 50 cents to $2.50 to play a tune on a digital jukebox. Roqbot says, though, that in most of the venues using Roqbot, the plays are sponsored. For example, in a recent promotion, a bar in Austin, Texas, ran beer ads within the app, and music plays were free.

App users can check in to the venue via Foursquare, but a check-in isn’t required. The app queues up music based on order of requests, but it also allows people using the app to give the thumbs-up or thumbs-down to songs in the queue, which could help speed along the play of a popular song.

One element of Roqbot worth noting is that it’s not pulling from a cache of music tracks — bye-bye, CD flipbooks — but streams tracks from the Web, which might not work so well in bars or other places with spotty Internet connections, perhaps resulting in some thumbs-downs from patrons who have just paid to play. Roqbot says there are certain devices that venues can install — like boxes from BrightSign — that will cache some music to aid in uninterrupted playing.

(Image courtesy of Flickr/Studiotre)

But some consumers still appreciate the features that a more powerful camera can provide, especially when it comes to shooting photos at weddings, on vacation or in situations that require a little more zoom.

That’s where cameras like the Sony Cyber-shot TX66 and Canon PowerShot Elph 520 come in. This Sony costs $350, while the Canon camera costs $300, with some retailers offering it for $259.