Dell’s Second Life islands take the opposite approach to those of IBM. Where IBM has built an employee free-for-all, Dell has obviously engaged a professional firm to create and maintain it’s regions. It shows in the quality of the builds, even if some areas seem to be a work in progress. For example, a teleporter to the Dell Factory brought me instead to the Crystal Pavilion, where the Dell Factory used to be. Oops.
When you arrive the first thing you notice is the Dell News Agent and a souvenir shop. The Dell News Agent is an object you can place on your land that will display, well, news. Not just Dell news, but feeds from Second Life, Reuters and RSS feeds. You can customize that is shown very easily. It’s actually very cool if you need something like that.
In the souvenir shop you can pick up a free Dell backpack. I’ve never quite gotten the backpack freebie thing, though a number of companies offer them. I never notice people wearing them, but maybe I’m hanging around with the wrong people. It’s not like you can put anything in them.
Now, if they made a backpack that prevented inventory loss I’d be wearing five of them.
Next door you’ll find a tech support cafe. Unfortunately I’m not in Second Life during the hours they’ve posted, so I can’t say how well this works. Hi, I’ve got a problem. My computer won’t boot up. Well, yes, I am using that computer now, why do you ask?
Wander around the back alley and you’ll find signs leading you to Michael Dell’s dorm room. It looks like it might be a good replica of the real thing, though perhaps a little tidier. Outside of the computer in the bathtub (maybe someone from the Tech Support cafe can explain that) and the posters (Caddyshack! ZZ Top!), there isn’t much to see. It’s.. a dorm room. The clickable computer in the main living area is merely a teleporter.
The main attraction at Dell is probably the giant computer. It’s Land of the Giants time examine the innards. There’s a stairway to help you through, which is a bit of a cheat, but the whole thing is very cute and nicely done. The only things missing are some dust bunnies and a lost screw. As with many builds like this, however, once you’ve seen it there isn’t much reason to go back. Maybe I’m jaded from having seen the innards of too many real life computers.
Take a transporter (egglike objects in which you crouch. Points for creativity but negative points for comfort) back to the Dell central hub and wander a bit. There you’ll find a unique ecological freebie: a scripted tree that grows at a rate you choose. You can let it grow for several weeks if you choose. The only downside is that the resulting tree is one of those flat 2-prim jobs that only looks good from certain angles.
So, Dell has a well done consumer-oriented build here. In the end it’s pure marketing, though, which is pretty much what you expect from Dell. There’s nothing revolutionary, no communities, or anything that would cause me to bother to return. They’re obviously making an investment in refining what they have done and building some conference areas. They aren’t taking any risks, either.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dell%20Island%204/1/159/25
Garth – thank you for taking the time to tour our facility! Sounds like I need to do some housekeeping to ensure that out signage reflects how the Crystal Pavilion has replaced the out-dated factory from our launch in SL 15 months ago. We also need to post the additional technical support hours we now have from 7-9pm SLT weekdays at the coffee shop. Todd Dell or Esperto Dell can be reached via IM for customer service or tech support assistance, as well.
Thought I’d share the story behind the computer parts in the bathroom of Michael Dell’s dorm room. According to Michael, his parents were not exactly keen on his “hobby” of building custom computers and were more interested in him attending classes to complete his university degree. So, whenever they would come for a visit, he would hide all the computer parts in the bathtub! In hindsight, I doubt they are very disappointed he continued to expand that business and grow it into what it is today.
I do hope we have more reasons for you to return soon. You can join the Dell group in order to receive updates and event invitations.
Thanks again!
~Laura/Pyrrha