How gaming became the future of social media
Which brings us back to Disney. Anne Sweeney, who oversees Disney's media networks including ABC, told Fortune before her on-stage interview at Brainstorm that she's more jazzed than ever by the opportunity to get out of the traditional box. "TV isn't just the stationary box in your house," she said. "It's a box of infinite possibilities."
That would be hype if Disney, under CEO Bob Iger, weren't aggressively transforming its growth strategies. Besides replacing ABC programming chief Steve McPherson (in an effort to pull the broadcast network from third place), it is making acquisitions like Playdom and aiming to produce more multi-platform programming like Lost -- which bears the indelible influence of Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, Disney's largest shareholder. (See "Steve Job's mark on ABC's Lost.")
"We just can't say we have one business model and that's it," Sweeney told CNNMoney's Poppy Harlow in the video below, shot at Brainstorm Tech. When Sweeney says that Disney is interested in "hybrid" models, it's natural to speculate that she has games on her mind.
Clearly, she's not alone.