Dell One2One was Dell’s official blog, started in July 2006 and later renamed Direct2Dell. It paired text posts with video blogs by named Dell staff, including the XPS 700 BYO vlog (7:51) posted on July 5, 2006, and its Vlogs category held 104 posts by a July 2008 capture.
Dell’s media host no longer serves those videos. The Internet Archive holds 72 video file addresses from that host, plus the original post pages with reader comments, and this page maps which is which.
DellOne2One is an independent publication. It has no affiliation, partnership, sponsorship or relationship of any kind with Dell Inc. or Dell Technologies, and is not endorsed by them.
DellOne2One is an independent technology publication. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Dell Inc. or Dell Technologies, and Dell, XPS, Latitude and Inspiron are trademarks of their owners. The domain hosted Dell’s official blog in 2006 to 2008, and this page draws on Wayback Machine copies of it.
What was the Dell One2One blog?
A corporate blog written by named employees. A July 11, 2006 post from Lionel Menchaca says the previous day was the first official day of the “one2one” weblog, and Wikipedia dates the Direct2Dell blog to July 2006.
Early captures are titled “one2one, Dell’s Weblog”. Captures from 2007 are titled “Direct2Dell”, and 2008 captures show navigation for Ideas, IdeaStorm, Videos and StudioDell.
The July 2008 capture counts 178 posts in Customer Experience, 89 in Linux and 43 in Design. The full backstory is in our Dell One2One blog history.
What was in the XPS 700 vlog and the other early videos?
In the XPS 700 BYO vlog, Mary Joseph of the XPS product team covers the desktop’s performance features and Dell’s first “build your own” edition. That edition sold a chassis, processor, motherboard and power supply, with the operating system and software optional.
| Post | Date and format | Who and what | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| XPS 700 BYO | Jul 5, 2006, wmv, 7:51 | Mary Joseph, XPS Product Team: performance and the BYO edition | Archived post |
| You Can’t Get This Off the Shelf | Jul 5, 2006, wmv, 5:53 | Ken Musgrave, Design and Usability: jet engine and muscle-car influence on the XPS 700 chassis | Archived post |
| Dell’s Smallest Notebook | Jul 6, 2006, wmv, 10:22 | Neeraj Srivastava, Latitude products: the D420 against the D620 and D820 | Archived post |
| No Bloatware, Please | Jul 21, 2006, wmv, 5:38 | Post by Michelle Pearcy; vlog by Jeremy Friedlander of the software team | Archived post |
| Dell Tablet PC | May 18, 2007, flv, 0:58 | Jeff Clarke on a rumored Latitude Tablet PC | Archived post |
| Dell to Offer Ubuntu 7.04 | May 1, 2007, flv, 9:59 | Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on Ubuntu and Linux adoption | Archived post |
Reader comments are archived with each post. One reader wrote on July 11, 2006 that a Dell rep had once told him the company would never sell a machine without the OS, and that Dell had lost his business as a result.
The XPS 700 also shows the blog under strain. A July 18, 2006 update offered orders placed up to that day either a free Core 2 Duo upgrade or a Dell gift card, after shipping delays.
What did the design talks cover?
On July 19, 2006, Ken Musgrave and Steve Gluskoter, directors of industrial design, opened a “Design @ Dell” series. They named four tenets: Consistency in Behavior, Brand Alignment, Innovation and Value, and promised follow-up posts on each.
We could not confirm that all four follow-ups appeared. The XPS lineage that followed is covered in the history section of our Dell XPS desktop buying guide, and the archived Design @ Dell post has the original wording.
How did Dell use the blog to listen to customers?
Publicly, and sometimes uncomfortably. “Real People are Here and We’re Listening” (July 11, 2006) answers feedback from Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, Shel Holtz and Robert Scoble within a day of the launch.
“Above All Else, Fix My Problem” (July 19, 2006) by Downs Deering reported about 85 percent satisfaction when an issue was solved in one or two calls, falling to about 50 percent after more. He admitted pulling 800 numbers off the web and letting hold times pass 30 minutes.
In the comments he reported that the 800 number was back on the web and call transfers were down roughly 25 percent since May.
“Comment Moderation” (July 14, 2006) disclosed that about 80 percent of comments were posted, 18 percent were sent to Dell support and 2 percent were rejected. Menchaca also named MP4 downloads as the top suggestion. See the Dell One2One customer advocacy model.
In August 2007 the same pattern returned for the XPS M1330, when a post apologized for delays and said Dell had worked through about 10 percent of its backlog.
Which of the original video files survive?
Not on Dell’s side. A request to the old media host today returns a page from this site, not video.
The Wayback Machine, however, holds 72 video file addresses from that host with HTTP 200 status, about 49 distinct clips once formats are merged by filename. The files for the XPS 700 and D420 vlogs were not among them: those posts pointed to mms:// streaming addresses on a raw IP host, and we found no archived copy.
| File | What we can say | Archived capture |
|---|---|---|
| May2007/Ubuntu.wmv | The Shuttleworth vlog, matched to its post. The capture is about 22 MB. | Jul 8, 2007 |
| May2007/Tablet.mp4, .flv, .wmv | The Jeff Clarke tablet clip, matched to its post. | Oct 13, 2007 |
| July2006/J_Friedman_BloatwareResponse_wmv.wmv | Matched to the No Bloatware post. The August 2006 capture is a 381-byte playlist stub, while 2007 captures of the same address are about 12 MB. We did not test playback. | Aug 6, 2006 |
| September2006/LinuxGuys.wmv | Filename only; Linux-related. | Oct 29, 2006 |
| October2006/Overclocking_XPS700.wmv | Filename only; about the XPS 700. | Nov 29, 2007 |
| November2006/Customer_Advocates.flv | Filename only; customer advocacy. | Nov 27, 2006 |
Where can you watch Dell videos from that era?
Two third-party YouTube uploads help. The first carries the title of the StudioDell video that Dell pointed readers to in May 2007, and the second is a 2008 keynote by Dell’s chief blogger.
For the Linux side of these videos, see Dell and Linux history.
How do you find an old One2One post?
Search the Wayback Machine for the original path pattern. Posts follow /one2one/archive/year/month/day/number.aspx, and some later posts, such as the March 31, 2008 business client update, use a title slug instead of a number.
Pick a capture from 2006 to 2008 rather than a later one, because a 2019 capture of the same address shows an expired-domain notice. Comments are included in the captures we read.
What could we not verify?
We did not play any archived video, so “survives” means the Internet Archive holds a file the server returned with HTTP 200. Many filenames describe content we could not match to a post.
Counts such as 104 vlogs come from one July 2008 capture and have no later check. WMV and FLV files generally need a desktop media player, and we did not test them in a browser.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Dell One2One blog?
It was Dell’s official corporate blog, launched in July 2006 and renamed Direct2Dell. Named employees posted text and video, and readers could comment on posts. Its Linux, Customer Experience and Vlogs categories held 89, 178 and 104 posts by a July 2008 capture.
Where can you watch the XPS 700 BYO vlog?
We found no archived copy of the video file under Dell’s media host, because the post pointed to an mms:// streaming address on a raw IP. The archived post page, which describes the vlog and carries the reader comments, is available through the Wayback Machine.
Is the original One2One blog still online?
Not at this address. A 2019 capture of an old post URL shows the domain as expired, and DellOne2One today is an independent publication with no affiliation to Dell. We did not verify where Dell’s blog lives now, so check Dell’s own site.
Can you download the original video files?
Sometimes. The Internet Archive holds 72 video file addresses from Dell’s old media host, including the Shuttleworth Ubuntu vlog, in wmv, flv, mp4 and ogg formats. We did not play any of them, and availability depends on the archive, so try the archived links in our table.