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[Wayan Vota]

Crass child-centric product tie in?  I'm surprised it took this long for child-focused corporate America to realize the marketing potential of One Laptop Per Child.  I would've thought long ago that the companies focused on selling to kids would have exploited the OLPC concept. 

But it seems only now do we have the Betty Crocker Wina Laptop, Give a Laptop promotion.  I've not made up my mind about it yet - the videos & games seem innocent enough (except for the insults in Xhosa part).

But what do you think?

[GregYohn]

Officially the promotion started last year!

I think that OLPC basically had a bunch of XO machines left here in the USA and no one wanted them. Remember that the 2nd G1G1 was a flop! They found some company that decided that it would attempt to make some money using the XO, since the idea sounds good! They bought a bunch REALLY cheap at fire sale prices and then the company gets to say that they gave away a $200 computer. HA! That is not the TRUE retail price of their donation, but that is another story. Anyway, the donation is netting the company more or about break even for their donation, thanks to our IRS tax codes!

Looking at the number of people making comments at the OLPC Forum, I would say that the XO is an orphaned computer already. Let's see how someone can get parts. In Sept 2009, I met strangers on the street in NYC that had an XO and never heard about this forum. My experience is not a good statistical sample, but I found it shocking none the less!

The website shown did not even let the viewers read the captions of the videos correctly. HA! Looks like someone did not think before making the website. Guess, I am overly picky since this corporate approach is so late in the product life cycle!

[Wayan Vota]

Do you see anything wrong with this photo?  Or am I just being too sensitive when I see a white boy as the donor and a black girl as the recipient, which is a stereotype that doesn't always hold true - are there no black people in the USA or only Africans using XO laptops?  What happened to the big OLPC talk about expanding into Afghanistan or its significant deployments in Peru and Uruguay?

[sracer]

Do you see anything wrong with this photo?  Or am I just being too sensitive when I see a white boy as the donor and a black girl as the recipient, which is a stereotype that doesn't always hold true - are there no black people in the USA or only Africans using XO laptops?  What happened to the big OLPC talk about expanding into Afghanistan or its significant deployments in Peru and Uruguay?

I think that you are being too sensitive and more than a bit politically correct.  How many caucasian children have been the recipients of the XO deployments? 

The USA is a melting pot.  Depicting a caucasian is an equally valid representation of the population as a black, asian, or latino.  Why you think that a caucasian is LESS representative is a mystery to me.

[davewa]

In terms of population statistics, probably the most accurate picture would be a hispanic donor and an asian recipient.  Pick the sex of each by flipping a coin.

But I agree -- your objection is too PC even for 2010.

[Chris J]

I won't comment on the appropriateness of the Win One Give One program. However --

I got a package of fruit snacks yesterday that happened to have the W1G1 contest on it. There was a code inside and instructions to visit www.winonegiveone.com to see if I'd won.

The sight was all Adobe Flash, and, I kid you not, took over an hour to load on my desktop  PC via a high speed DSL connection. Then it took another 10 minutes or so per following screen, through four screens, to find out that I didn't win (probably just as well, anyway, since I have 2 XOs now).

This to promote the distribution of a computer that will hardly support Flash at all. Go figure.

[sracer]

I won't comment on the appropriateness of the Win One Give One program. However --

I got a package of fruit snacks yesterday that happened to have the W1G1 contest on it. There was a code inside and instructions to visit www.winonegiveone.com to see if I'd won.

The sight was all Adobe Flash, and, I kid you not, took over an hour to load on my desktop  PC via a high speed DSL connection. Then it took another 10 minutes or so per following screen, through four screens, to find out that I didn't win (probably just as well, anyway, since I have 2 XOs now).

This to promote the distribution of a computer that will hardly support Flash at all. Go figure.

You have:  (multiple choice, select one)
(A) faulty hardware
(B) faulty software/OS
(C) faulty ISP
(D) visited the site when it was experiencing heavy traffic
(E) all of the above

I just visited that site...  less than 10 seconds to load, and about a second for each screen.

[thegeek]

I agree, you probably have something wrong with your computer. It didn't take long at all for the page to load. As for the white kid being the donor, and the black kid being the recipient, this is something that I would have never noticed had you not said anything. I think the problem here is that maybe you are to racially sensitive, and so you look for things to be offended about. If you keep looking, I'm sure you will keep finding what your looking for. Does anyone know anything about Angie's List? What can you tell me?

[microwiz]

Don't downplay what Wayan noticed or try to attribute it to some "fault" of his.

It's not about being "PC" or being "to racially sensitive" - if such things aren't pointed out, then people will fail to think about them, which is an insensitivity in and of itself.  I'd love to hear what the thought process was for the people who made the ad image - but that seems pretty unlikely

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