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Dell contribues some virtual trees to Earth Day
Earth Day (this Sunday) may be another fabrication by some marketing department, but Dell is taking it to a new low.
The company is handing out free trees in Second Life. These aren't just your every day virtual trees, players can configure the speed at which they grow and the trees offer several textures.
All this, the company claims is an "expansion of Dell's Plant a Tree for Me program", in which computer buyers can choose to pay an additional $2 to plant a tree and offset some carbon emissions. It also shows Dell's intension to use Second Life "to explore new ways we can extend our direct relationship with customers, and to learn new ways to interact with virtual communities".
You can argue that handing out free virtual trees helps with Dell's image, just like handing out free T-shirts at a trade show makes for very happy goody hunters.
But labeling this marketing stunt as environmentally friendly is utter nonsense, if not just plain deceptive. It has nothing to do with planning a real tree. The Second Life trees don't offer any benefit to the environment. In fact, they increase the demand on Second Life's servers, thereby increasing their power consumption and growing the carbon footprint of this virtual world.
Making things worse, Dell is throwing an Earth Day party this Sunday. Soliciting users to further increase the load on Second Life servers... isn't that as helpful for the environment as staging a drive in protest?
Don't get me wrong. Dell has every right to throw Second Life parties and the company deserves praise for setting up genuine customer conversations through its Direct2Dell blog and IdeaStorm. But the Second Life tree planning initiative has nothing to do with the environment.
April 20, 2007 at 07:12 PM | Permalink
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Comments
I am currently using dell to improve the environment. I am not purchasing a dell ever again, because they treated me so badly.. No purchase means no delvery and no construction cost, plus they don't waste any more electricity, with their smarmy "please hold" for no reason....
I used to love dell, no I really detest their guts, and the above article is a living example of one of the reasons I hate them
Marketing promises are seldom kept by customer service....
I invite other people to join me in not purchasing dells and helping dell become more carbon neutral
Posted-by: mike bean | 22 Apr 2007 22:30:33
I went to the sim to protest and left instantly, after putting the link of this post in public. I got a msg from the owner of the sim calling me a griefer etc.
The place looked more like a hedonist convention with people yelling to get naked etc. No one there seemed to care much about Earth Day, it was really a shame.
I got this instant msg right after I left.
[16:14] Boliver Oddfellow: you are a guest in the Dell sim please behave like an honorered guest and not a griefer
[16:14] Honey Wendt: Dell is not helping the Earth
[16:14] Honey Wendt: By this virtual tree thing, I'm protesting I'm not a griefer.
[16:15] Honey Wendt: Yes call us terrorists now. That's what you people like doing right.
[16:15] Boliver Oddfellow: this is private land if you contunue youwill be banned as a griefer
[16:15] Honey Wendt: I'm not even there.
[16:15] Honey Wendt: Are you threatening me?
[16:15] Boliver Oddfellow: no I am imforming you
[16:15] Boliver Oddfellow: I dont threaten
[16:15] Honey Wendt: You people should not be doing this virtual crap.
[16:16] Honey Wendt: Are you involved in this?
[16:16] Honey Wendt: Who are you to inform me this?
[16:17] Honey Wendt: Do you deny the fact that planting virtual trees is not helping the world? Does Dell deny this?
[16:17] Boliver Oddfellow: you are gone see ya
[16:18] Honey Wendt: Answer the question cause this would be in blogs.
[16:18] Honey Wendt: You are being a representative of dell right?
[16:19] Boliver Oddfellow: I am the CEO of the company that built the sim, and planting a virtual tree does nothing but call attn to the actual program where real money is spent planting real trees
[16:19] Honey Wendt: Just answer this question.
[16:19] Honey Wendt: Does planting virtual trees, by Dell help the Earth.
Posted-by: Honey | 23 Apr 2007 00:32:09
Err look up environment in the dictionary.
Posted-by: Sean | 23 Apr 2007 00:35:14
Maybe the trees are meant to promote the project, thereby increasing the number of people who might visit the Dell plant-a-tree site?
Posted-by: Anonymous | 23 Apr 2007 01:37:59
Are we so jaded that we think no big company could possibly try to do the right thing from time to time?
Posted-by: anonymous | 23 Apr 2007 02:28:52
...if you'd bothered to actually take an in-depth look around, you might have noticed that their entire earth day event was organised to promote their new RL tree-planting intiative in partnership with the conservation fund and carbonfund.org...while their bookkeeping systems aren't set up to accept linden dollars (in fact, they're still working out a few UI kinks with accepting charitable contributions through their extant e-commerce system), they did everything they could to make RL donations as simple as possible...
...there might be plenty of other reasons folks have for disliking dell, but going out of their way to facilitate a real-life tree-planting program shouldn't be one of them...
Posted-by: Myrrh Massiel | 23 Apr 2007 02:55:52
Sleuth - I'm sorry that you feel our Earth Day celebration in SL was deceptive, because it certainly was not meant to be. As Myrrh (no relation to Pyrrha) was nice enough to point out, the intention of the virtual trees and the party was to increase awareness of the RL Plant a Tree for Me program - not to increase Linden Lab's energy consumption.
Honey Wendt - my apologies that our event staff escorted you out of the party before I had an opportunity to speak with you myself. I was trying to find you across the crowd so that we could chat. To possibly answer your question here - no, planting virtual trees in SL does not directly improve the RL environment; however, our hope is that those SL residents that do plant the trees will also take the time to visit the web site they link to and make a donation that can make a difference.
Posted-by: Laura Thomas/Pyrrha Dell | 23 Apr 2007 04:16:28
All I can say, Dell sucks! I'll never buy one again.
Posted-by: Kevin | 23 Apr 2007 09:15:33
Dell is headed downhill quickly.
I have used many Dell products and, from my experience, they are poorly manufactured: they feel cheap, break down quickly, and are very error prone before breaking. The experience is only worsened by the terrible customer support. Dell customers are treated as poorly as Dell products are made.
Beyond Dell's terrible quality and lack of support is their low wages and uninteresting work. Dell is where employees go to die slowly.
Finally, I'd like to point out that Second Life is not what people want--major corporations are the only normal people in Second Life. The interface is clunky, the gameplay is boring, and the environment is littered with ads. Keep your ads and PR stunts out of entertainment.
Posted-by: Ben | 23 Apr 2007 16:04:59
So by this premise, anyone who prints a flyer advertising a carbon-awareness rally or prints a book on why we should car about climate change is also no helping? This is a totally ridiculous metric. Clearly the key battle in the campaign for global responsibility will be fought in the heads of all the non-believers and apathetics. This kind of program is both productive and necessary.
Posted-by: James | 23 Apr 2007 16:11:10
RE: James.
This is the equivalent of them printing one billion fliers and using airplanes to drop them over big cities, and claim that the action itself is environmentally friendly. If Dell hadn't claimed this was an "extension" of its Plant a tree for me program, but painted it as a mere marketing campaign (which is what it is), nothing would have been wrong with it.
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