Current mood:

geeky

Dell's old Della site
I read today on Engadget that Dell is changing the name of their female-focused mini-site from Della to Lifestyle because of public criticism. It's a netbook marketing site (a netbook is a notebook computer designed for mobile usage). Since Engadget's community is probably 95% male, the comments consisted almost entirely of bad jokes. The original Engadget announcement on May 11th and the Slashdot May 15th announcement talks about the backlash Dell received about the site and the subsequent changes. On one of the Slashdot reference sites (The New York Times), a female marketing professional (who's only semi-computer literate) is quoted: "If the netbook is great for using the Internet and has a long memory, that would really be about helping netbook buyers get stuff done while they waited at the airport — not because they want to check diet sites." Long memory? Huh? She probably meant "long battery life," although one commenter made a pretty funny observation about netbook memory being physically shorter than tradition desktop memory (because the system case is physically smaller). The new Lifestyle site is here but the design hasn't changed all that much from Della. I think the name "Della" is more accurate than "Lifestyle" because there are only pictures of women on the site.

I admit, I was incredibly annoyed about the site at first. The very idea that females supposedly need a separate and more simple (there's less technical information) site to buy a computer is pretty insulting. But the more comments I read, the better I felt about it. I decided that I should be more upset at the general female population than at Dell. Why? Because there are a lot of females out there who would think Della was a "cute" idea and not feel insulted by Dell placing diet tips and recipes on the "Tech Tips" page (it's now just called "Tips"). They embody the stereotype of the clueless female consumer (when it pertains to anything technological). Dell just took advantage of that fact. The site wasn't meant for females like me who grew up using a computer (and could probably build one from scratch).

Personally, I would never buy a netbook. 1) the screen is too small; 2) it doesn't support enough memory (1 GB); 3) the default hard drive sizes are too small (160 GB max); 4) the processor isn't fast enough (1.6 GHz) nor does it support 64-bit architecture. It's really meant for checking your e-mail or surfing the Web on the go, but why in the world would someone pay $250-$300 for a device that's only meant to accomplish a few tasks? When I buy a computer, I want it to be able to handle graphically-intense or processor-intense games, graphic design programs like Photoshop, and program design. I want it to still be able to adequately run contemporary software 3-4 years after I buy it. One of the arguments for marketing netbooks to women is because they're small ("purse friendly") and lightweight ("less likely they'll break a nail").

And, of course, small things are "cute."