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Free-PC Bites the Dust 253

Posted by emmett from the sometimes-you-get-more-than-you-pay-for dept.
Jade & eann write, "Not too long ago, we signed up for Free-PC, mainly to see if we could find a way around their ads. :) It ends up we just had to be patient. After the merger with emachines, they've discontinued the FreePC program and their Internet service this past week: the details are here. If you have one of these systems, it's now yours to keep. They're not even bothering to have people send back the machines."
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Free-PC Bites the Dust More

Free-PC Bites the Dust

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  • Why free pc failed. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They failed because forcing people to view ads gets annoying and most people just ignore the ads anyway so the advertisers don't get enough ROI to make the system worthwhile.
  • Anyone care to find out if Linux or Free BSD will run on one of these beasts?

    It somehow seems a proper thing to do.
  • i was at Demo '99 when bill gross announced it - i think of it now as the pinnacle of consumer internet business model madness....R.I.P. Theses types of companies really will not make it in the long term that just try to get users with no idea of what value they provide or why anyone should use them...
  • Is should - the article seemed to suggest that they were giving away Compaq and Dell machines. I'm not sure about Compaq, but Dell (in my experience) has been fairly standard hardware.

    Now I'm a little pissed off. I applied for one of those a while back and never got one. Oh well....
  • I signed up for one, but they never sent it. Probably because I'm under 18.
    Stupid age of majority....
  • Nice new Compaq PC. The FreePC soft was easy to bypass, so I had Win98 (no choice, but I could turn the ads off at least) and Linux running on it for months. Getting the title on the PC now is just icing on the cake. Thanks FreePC!

    ~Tiroth

  • Re:another idealab creation (Score:3)

    by DHartung ( 13689 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:09PM (#1257169) Homepage
    >i think of it now as the pinnacle of consumer internet business model madness....R.I.P.
    >Theses types of companies really will not make it in the long term that just try to get users
    >with no idea of what value they provide or why anyone should use them...

    I don't know that you're right, there. I think they did have a good idea, they just got out-competed. Outfits like NetZero or Altavista are proving that better-financed operations will probably succeed using similar (some would say opposite) financing methods. And as far as I'm concerned, I had no beef with them (sheesh, why not have some advertiser I've never met pay for my internet? They pay for my TV). There's probably still room for more variations on this business model as PCs get stripped down to "internet appliance" levels and the cost of buying and keeping paying customers becomes prohibitive.

    The overweening commercialism AOL model may grate on Slashdotters, but it's been very successful. And there seem to be millions of potential customers who are perfectly happy with that model. Let 'em have it...
    ----

  • free-pc (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I received one of these a few months back. It's a Compaq mini tower with the bare minimum you'd expect to get at a store. It is a great machine if you consider it is free, but not one i'd buy with my own money. It has 64MB mem., however, this is shared with the video card that is built onto the motherboard. It leave 54MB of that available for the system. I'm not sure if this is the reason that the display(and consequently, the mouse) would freeze up for a few seconds at a time once in a while. Is anyone able to confirm this? ~Jack

  • The whole idea.... (Score:5)

    by niekze ( 96793 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:11PM (#1257172) Homepage
    If you were to get one of these free pc's, you should follow their wishes.
    By bypassing the ad's, you are effectively stealing from them. The only other moral option is to not take part in the promotion at all. But since morality is scarce in the world, the company goes under. Imagine how many people who couldn't afford a pc, being able to get one. They would simply have to trade their time to watch ads in return. Its a simple exchange.
    It's not "free"
    Its only an exchange of a different commodity.
    They also have the option not to take part in the offer.
    It's sad that an idea such as this goes down the toilet.
    I don't support it, but I think it should be available for those you do.
  • Has anyone looked at Eudora recently? They stomped the Light and Pro version and are now distributing a combined version.

    Full version: Pay for it.
    Free version: Agree to have ads *in the software's window*
    Free version with no ads: Fewer features.

    With "free hardware incl. ads" going down the drain, I wonder if Eudora's business model will be more successful.

    ------------------

  • Didn't work that way. There were very few available, so you had to fill out a (legnthy) form, and they were choosing people of certain demographics, to support their marketing. I have no idea who they gave them to, and on exactly what basis, but it was NOT easy to get one of these things.

  • Re:Free OS on ex-Free PC (Score:4)

    by baglunch ( 11210 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:15PM (#1257175) Journal
    The Presario 5301 (which is the version of FreePC I received) runs RedHat Linux v6.1, and Win98 as is. The imbedded SiS530 video makes X suck, so I'm mostly running without X, but if 800x600x8 is fine with you, then by all means X away.

    Neither BeOS nor Caldera OpenLinux work on it. I don't have BSD to try it out.

  • When was this announced? (Score:3)

    by / ( 33804 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:15PM (#1257176)
    As part of this change, we will be discontinuing FreePCNet, our free Internet access service, effective February 14, 2000. After February 14, our local dial-up numbers will no longer work. At that time, all @freepcmail.com accounts will also be shut down. We encourage you to notify your family, friends, and associates with whom you correspond of this change prior to February 14.

    Does anyone know when this announcement was made? February 14 has already come and gone, so either this is old news or they really didn't play nice with their customers on the email part -- it couldn't be too hard to set up a temporary forwarding service. I suppose they just expect their customers not to complain after getting to keep the machine for free, eh? :)

  • Re:The whole idea.... (Score:3)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:17PM (#1257178) Homepage
    ...and during commercial break on TV, I am not allowed to go to the bathroom, but have to stay and watch?

    Face it, the advertisting industry is struggling right now because more and more people simply ignore ads *most of the time*. A business plan solely based on *ad revenue* does not work anymore these days, because advertisers are reluctant to advertise. There's so much advertising space these days, and thanks to new media, we are having more ad space added all the time.

    ------------------
  • I tried to get one, but they never got around to teling me I could have one ;-) I wanted to see if I could get around the ads too. Thoguh I never expected them to be really cool machines. That's what you can expect for a FREE-PC. the cheapest hardware, and well, I'm suprised they didn't go with a FREE-OS too... ;-) - AZ
  • Somebody shoot me.. I was going to get one of those when I first heard about it, but procrastinated and soon forgot about it. I would have loved a free computer, even if it were a dell or compaq... *long sigh*
  • I was just in discussions with them about my FreePC not meeting my needs (because the ads made the K6-2 388 seem like a 386), and the probability of my returning the machine to them when the announcement came through.

    So that was pretty cool.

  • The last story had 300 posts while everyone's waiting for Futurama, now that it's on, this story gets nothing.

    I told a few of my users at work the free pcs were okay for them since they weren't doing anything important with their machines, but that I'd never get one. Looks like they win out.
  • This is a sign of bigger things to come. Granted, this was a dumb idea to begin with, but it's an example of how paying for everything with advertising doesn't always work. Yes, it does work often, take broadcast television for example, or radio, but it can also fail miserably. Just think of all these wonderful internet services that we enjoy free of charge, possibly providing only a modicum of information about ourselves. Now think about how many of those companies are making money. Some of them that are not may still, but some of them will be doomed just like FreePC. We might have to *shudder* pay for things. That might require *shudder* identifying ourselves. Anonymity as we know it could be ending. Anarchists of the world unite!
  • You tried it, you didn't like it. You were going to return it.
    Thats what im advocating.
  • OpenBSD runs like a champ on my Compaq 5301, so FreeBSD will probably run. The video card shipped with it is embedded so getting X configed properly is a bit of a pain, but doable.

    peace
  • Im not saying you can't go to the bathroom, but on the whole, you should watch the ads. I think HBO doesnt really have commercials (except for its own content, i don't have it, so i could be wrong about this) but you have to pay extra for it.
    If everyone stops watching commercials...the companies will say "why are we paying for commercials when people don't watch them?"
    Then they will stop paying for them, the networks will lose a lot of money, and charge more money for stations and cable providers to offer them, to recoupe their loses. Then guess where the money ends up coming from?
    I hate commercials, but i rarely watch tv. but when i do, i watch the stupid commercials.
  • While I can't directly comment on your case, I have worked on a couple dozen shared-memory SiS SS7 mobo's with the same problem. The odd display lag was fixed by going to good PC100 memory. Yes, the memory is only ever clocked at 66, (same as the retarded AGP implementation) but most of the 'PC66' out there is pure crap.

    That or disable the onboard video and stick a PCI videocard in it.

  • Re:The whole idea.... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:28PM (#1257189)
    you hit the nail on the head without realizing it.

    The advertising industry is struggling because they got greedy, put ads everywhere, resulting in ad overload, and so people now tune the ads out.

    Lets face it, ads are everywhere, and so as such they have become background noise to be filtered out.

  • Embedded video always sucks, not just because it never has enough power or RAM, but also because X has terrible support for it. On my old Dell 486 DX 33, I could never get X to work without severe video flaws, because it had some random-ass customized crappy onboard video, and was incapable of being upgraded.

  • FreeI.Net (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I set my Nephew up with freei.net last weekend and discovered I could force-quit (on a Mac) their lame banner ad displayer and retain the connection. Truly a good "feature"!
  • I have one of the FreePC machines and I just reread the letter.

    The letter I received from emachines transferring the lease was dated February 11, 2000.

    It also stated that my credit card information was destroyed February 1, 2000.

    peace

  • Down and out in Silicon Valley ........ (Score:4)

    by Lowther ( 136426 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @03:35PM (#1257193)
    I saw a documentary the other day about a soup kitchen in Silicon Valley.

    .It's boast was that its clients had the highest IQs amongst 'down and outs'. Most of these people were either coders who had burnt out, been put out to grass (for being too old), or had lost their shirts (and houses) in failed .com startups.

    Reading this article, it figures. Wonder if I saw any Free PC execs in the queue ? .......
  • Nah, you didn't get one cos 3 billion other people also signed up for one, and the odds for payout got slim in a hurry... (well, mebbe not that many, but it seemed like it =)

    I didn't get one either.. oh well, probably wouldn't have lasted, being a Compaq!
  • hmm i never really thought about it that way. Being a college student, i see ads everywhere i look on campus, even in the classrooms.
    But to extend what you said:
    The advertising industry is struggling because they got greedy, put ads everywhere, resulting in ad overload, and so people now tune the ads out
    They now have to come up with even more (sometimes not so) creative and unique ideas to sell their products.
    I guess thats why some people watch the SuperBowl just to watch the commercials.
    But with this Free-Pc, you had a choice to see the ads or not, in that you didnt have to take part in it if you didnt want to deal with the ads.
    Thats much better than having to see 4 credit card ad posters as well as 3 web site ads on the bulliten board in my philosophy class.
    I think im going to take those down monday... :)
  • I wonder if this business model will ever succeed.

    There's an amusing and lengthy flash intro at FreeComputer.com [freecomputer.com], but no actual content yet, besides an e-mail address.
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • As a customer, I received an email at my contact email address that I specified when filling out their demographic application form. I also received mail by post to the address I specified in the application. Perhaps you didn't put accurate info in your application?

    I received the email .... some time ago. I received the postal letter a week or two ago.

  • The Presario 5301 (which is the version of FreePC I received) runs RedHat Linux v6.1, and Win98 as is. The imbedded SiS530 video makes X suck, so I'm mostly running without X, but if 800x600x8 is fine with you, then by all means X away. Neither BeOS nor Caldera OpenLinux work on it. I don't have BSD to try it out.

    I have a Presario 5360 (not a FreePC) with NetBSD and a Presario 5070 (also not a FreePC) but both with the SIS530 chip. &nbsp The latest XFree86 (3.3.6) is supposed to *finally* support this chip and that is what I'm running on the *BSD. &nbsp I didn't even bother with it on the 5070 and popped an S3 Virge in there and am running Mandrake 6.1 with XFree86 3.3.2 (I believe) - real pretty.

  • Qualcomm has nothing to lose on this. They were already using the paid-full/free-light model for Eudora. With these two options remaining, Qualcomm only has a gain. With MS's venture into the mail client market, with Outlook Express and Netscape's client both available for free, Qualcomm was faced with getting people to pay for a client that competes with full-featured free clients.

    FreePC failed for other reasons - people are used to paying for computers. If Compaq, HP, and Dell all started giving away all of their consumer-market computers, you would see any non-free consumer-level PC company go down the drains.

    The important aspect is that the two products must be able to reasonably compete.
  • I did get a Free-PC from them a while back. I got a Compaq with a Cyrix processor and 32MB of RAM. Needless to say, it's annoyingly slow when it's throwing ads in your face with a 56k connection. So, I gave it to my mom so she could learn how to use email and browse the web. When I come home from school on spring break, I'm going to install Linux on it. I just hope it doesn't have a winmodem... ;-)
  • The problem with shareware was that too many not-so-good programs were distributed that asked for far too high prices. These died out and only few shareware authors remained, but those that did are alive and well.

    The same thing is happening on Palm Pilot now. There are a lot of small hacks that ask for a ridiculous 50$ registration fee. Those will fade and be forgotten, but those other Palm shareware software applications, those that are worth registering, will continue to exist.

    ------------------
  • I agree...Shareware is a great idea in theory. You get to try it before you buy it.
    It was true capitalism, you ideally buy the best products that you want.
    But, people act dishonestly and wonderful things like shareware die.
    Now you have to pay for Microsoft crap on your new PC if you want it or not.
    Its just like when you were a kid at halloween and you came to the infamous no light house with the "Please Take One" bucket.
    Its sad when people don't commit crimes for fear of getting caught, and not for the actually morality of such actions.
  • If everyone stops watching commercials...the companies will say "why are we paying for commercials when people don't watch them?"



    Right. And they already do. Just look at billboards around you.

    An increasing number of billboards say "your ad could be here!" these days. Sometimes you will see posters for charity. these posters are not free advertisement by the billboard owner to the charity organization. These are just a way to hide that this billboard was not sold for "normal" advertisement.


    ------------------

  • It's easy. Just choose "Yes" when they ask you if you have ever purchased anything online, and answer "Within 3 months" for most of the "Are you planning to buy Product X?" Oh, and specify a high income. :)

    No, I never signed up.

    --

  • Actually, the Eastern and Central times zones in the US get the same programming at the same time from the networks. So, in fact, probably over half the population of the US (Eastern and Central time zones) were, in fact, getting Futurama during that half hour.

    But I digress. It's not really that important anyway, so I'm going to watch The Simpsons now.
  • It was announced several weeks ago. I recall reading about it in NYT's [www.nytimes] "Circuits" section. I don't know why I didn't submit it.
    -Ravagin
    "Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
  • For the freeDSL one, be careful.... The fine print on one says that they also get the right to switch your long distance to their service; and that if you disconnectt within than 3 (or was it 5) years, you owe them a disconnect fee that is over US$500.00 + a $125.00 DSL activation fee.......

    Amarillo Linux Users Group [alug.org]
  • I filled out the form a couple years ago, just screwing around.. honestly told them that I had 6 computers, and filled out everything else.. never dreaming I would get it.. then a couple monthes ago they sent me an email and I got a free pc/monitor.. it was pretty slow while running all those ads, but after I formatted and reinstalled, its not a bad system.. for free.
  • I received notification from them at *least* one week before they discontinued their services. I thought about submitting the info to /. but I saw a news item on Ars-Technica about it, and figured that someone would beat me to it anyway. Guess I should have submitted the story here ;-). Anyway, the bottom line is that Free-PC wasn't unfair (at least with me) with notifications and such. This story just didn't get on /. until now.
  • You know, some advertisers have technology to serve you ads that you are more likely to be interested in.

    Too bad they mixed it in with a bunch of privacy-compromising technology.

    I hate to break it to you, but relevant ads and privacy are mutually exclusive. You cannot have both without having to download evey single ad gif and installing client-end software to choose which ads to display. Its not practical at all.

    In the way it is currently (and probably best) implemented (I say best because I never actually notice the ads) there is no way to have privacy and relevant ads.

  • At least in my opinion. Apple was right to tell those FreeMac people to take their business elsewhere.
  • By bypassing the ad's, you are effectively stealing from them.

    If you want to be strict, seeing the ads is not enough. The money to pay for the ads come from people who buy the advertised products. So, in fact, if you are truly honest, you should see the ads and buy those products.

    Moderators, take note:
    1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything

  • yeah, i have messed with one, they BLOW! they displays are worthless....
  • My aunt received a free PC as part of the program. Now that it's discontinued, she obviously doens't need to look at the ads - so how can I get rid of them for her? Are they just programs that run in the background or is it an entire explorer shell replacement?

    (I haven't seen the PC yet, but I'd like to help her out - thanks =)

  • What advertisers don't get (Score:4)

    by ZuG ( 13394 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @04:27PM (#1257222) Homepage Journal
    All I have heard lately is how advertising has "suddenly" stopped working, and how readership is going down the drain and companies that rely on ads are going out of business.

    The things that people don't get is that advertising viewership has always been the same.

    Let's take a look at the traditional model vs. the internet model for a moment. The traditional model (television/radio) sends out advertisements to the viewership in hopes that it will boost product sales. The internet does the same, except that they look for website readership. So what's the real difference? Website click-throughs can be tracked. TV ads cannot.

    Advertisers assume that if an ad is played during a show that people watch, then the people see it. You and I know this, but the Advertising exec's have yet to get it. Websites have the technology to realize that this is absolutely false. Almost nobody watches ads, TV or otherwise, but until there is a way to track TV views physical viewing and comprehending of an ad (designated by a click-through online), the execs will never know that the ads they spend so much money on are simply not effective.

  • What's up with Freewwweb? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Anybody use this freewwweb service? I signed up
    for it last week (under Windows), and have yet
    to see an ad, or even receive an advert email.
    I was even reading on an NG where people use the
    service under Linux.... How the hell do these
    people make money? Is my Windows install messed up
    or something? I figured on having to look at some
    kind of ever-present floater ad, like I hear
    Netzero, etc, uses. I'm not bitching, mind you...
    I just find it a little strange in this day and age
    of ever-present advertising that I'm getting
    something for *free*, no strings attached. Am I
    going to be tracked down, and brainwashed into
    joining a Seinfeldian cult of carpet cleaners?
  • I first read about this in a news item Feb 2 on ArsTechnica. So this news is kind of old.

    Terry
  • Not sure when it was anounced but this story was on C|Net over two weeks ago [cnet.com].

    What's really interesting is that even though FreePC has failed its legacy will live on. Hardware profit margins are now slim to non-existent and almost every major PC manufacturer is now involved in selling internet access to customers as a way to increase revenue streams from their customers. Who said scorched earth business models don't benefit the consumer?

  • Re:Now how do I remove those ads? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Boot to DOS, cd into Program Files, FreePC (IIRC). Locate the Freepc executable and delete it. Machine will boot 98 normally & you'll have to set up a dialup networking option. While you're at it, have a look at config.sys/autoexec.bat to get rid of the stupidities. When you're in Doze, be sure to get rid of all the stupid Compaq maintenance/troubleshooting nonsense- the machine is actually pretty nice once all the garbage is unloaded.

    Gregm

  • In the last paragraph, the second sentence should read "You and I know this IS FALSE..."
  • Out of curiousity I visited FreePC's site, and it mentioned that as a part of their going out of business, they were going to "destroy [users'] credit card information" and "transfer the titles" of the PCs.

    What reason did FreePC have for having recipients of their free machines' credit card numbers? Did they threaten to charge people who were able to evade the advertising software? If so, did they ever charge people? And what exactly was the company able to do by owning the title of the PC? Recall it if they found someone evading?

  • I reported this 2 weeks ago when I got notification from E-Machines that it was being discontinued.....why is it I find I am always ignored by the people who run Slashdot?
  • If your submissions are any good, lots of other people will also be submitting them, and eventually in about 2 weeks one of them will luck out and get a story in :)
  • the execs will never know that the ads they spend so much money on are simply not effective.

    Advertising executives do know the level of efficieny of their advertisements. While there is no way for them to find out exactly how many viewers of a particular show are actually absorbing the information in their particular ad, they are able to tell whether or not sales are increasing in response to specific ads. While without a way to find out exactly how many people are watching their ads there is no way to prove a direct causational link between advertising and sales, there is a strong correlation between using advertisements that have been rated highly by focus groups and increased sales. Correlation over years and years is enough (and I would hope would be enough for you too) to assume that advertisements are effective if properly executed.

  • Didn't you pay the signup fee? Thats where they get their money. My parents bought it three years ago and are still using it. It is PAINFULLY slow however, but for a one time fee of $70 what do you expect?
  • In fact I really REALLY HATE TV Commercials (with passion) I HATE when something cuts into my program. This is mostly because I don't watch TV often enough to get used to that shit and when I watch it, I don't want MY time wasted by stupid ads. I never ever bought anything because of a commercial and I hope that most people don't either.

    Hopefully with HDTV there would be a way to get rid of commercials altogether with some utility that would notice when a commercial starts and when it ends or something like that.

    Thank you

  • that, and the audience they attracted were (no offense to those here who may have gotten them) bottom feeders... If they're going to get a free celeron 333 system with a 15" monitor with a free internet account and try to ignore the ad window, that's not really a market that many advertisers really *want* to reach.
  • Fifty bucks for a hack? Nice try. HackMaster itself is $5 non-crippled shareware, and almost all of the hacks I registered cost no more than $7.

    True, there are some programs for the Palm that cost more than $50, but they're for enterprise or medical use. Palm developers know not to make their programs more than $20, or even $10 for very small utilities.
  • http://www.e4me.com/fpc/fpc_cus_sup_info.htm

    That page has a few executables for removing the ad software from the machines.

  • CuteFTP does this as well. You can pay or just use as is.

    Pay: No annoying banner ads
    Use As-Is: Annoying banner ads

    Of course, these ads are easily stopped with a few software cracks :)

    And with that in mind...I don't believe the whole "ad in the software" will work either. It's one thing to be viewing a website that has some annoying DoubleClick ad (easily blocked with the IJB proxy), but when they code the damn ads into the software, then I get pissed, and then download a crack to eliminate the ad. With the "ad in the software" model, you can't eliminate the ad through normal means. You can either download a crack to kill it, or you have to use a hex editor and poke around and hope you got rid of the code.

    Rest assured, if I get stuck with adware, you can bet I'm going to AstaLaVista to find the crack to kill the ad.

    How desperate are advertisers anyway?
  • No, you are incorrect. The Advertisers paid to have their advertisements shown to the Free-PC users.
    Free-PC gives free pc's to users who will watch the ads.
    THAT IS ALL.
    There is no guarantee to Free-PC or the advertisers that you will buy their product. Only that you will see the ad.
    Look at /. they have banners. I don't have to click the banners, but i could also find a way to turn them off. But if I did that, as well as others, the advertisers would stop giving them money.
    I click on ads rarely as i would think others do as well. The advertisers know this and take the risks.
    Thats why commercials try to be exciting attention grabbers or use some other technique to sell us their products.
    But you touched on an interesting point. The fact that those who buy the products, effectively pay for the advertisements. You are correct there. And that is obviously why generic products are cheaper.
    I do see a point to buy a product if you support its cause. I bought the OpenBSD 2.6 cdrom even though i could easily ftp install it. I like OpenBSD so I contribute to it.
    Do i have to? of course not. If i did, it wouldnt be free.
  • Look at /. they have banners. I don't have to click the banners, but i could also find a way to turn them off. But if I did that, as well as others, the advertisers would stop giving them money.
    I will not be "shamed" into watching advertisements - I don't accept the argument. I have an advertising filter [cjb.net] that blocks about 90% of Slashdot ads (about 90% of all web ads). I have not agreed to anything that would force me to look at (or rather, not block) these ads - therefore I have a perfect right to filter /.'s pages any damn way I want to.

    However, in the case of the free PC I believe there's a clause in the agreement that says you will specifically not bypass the advertising. This is a whole different kettle of fish. Breaching that agreement means that you've gone against the contract you've signed. The company is then able to inact whatever penalties they've put in place.

    Advertising is a crap shoot. Companies know that click through rates for Web ads are about 0.02%. But take the millions of people that are supposed to be on the 'Net and that's a large number of people on high profile sites.

    Now don't get me wrong. I'm not promoting any form of "theft" (as a previous poster mentioned), in fact I consider myself a patron in the old sense of someone who supports people, products or services they enjoy. I have no problems tossing money at a worthy product, and I'm very willing to risk more money, more often on things I believe to be a Good Idea. However, this lowest common denominator saturation adverting gives me the shits.

  • Re:Credit card information and title transfer? (Score:3)

    by _vapor ( 55645 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @05:49PM (#1257270) Homepage
    The reason they took people's credit card information was because they wanted insurance against people breaking it, or not using it often enough (i.e. not seeing the ads often enough to make money for Free-PC). I don't have the paperwork here, but the agreement was that if you broke your Free-PC or didn't use it enough, they would take the computer back from you. However, if you wanted to keep the computer, you could buy it from them. The price you would pay was on a sliding scale based on how long you had it. For example, if I had the machine for a year, but they wanted it back because I didn't use it, I could elect to buy it from them for, say, 50% of the market price. If I had it for 2 years and I wanted to buy it, I would only pay maybe 15% of the price. Eventually, after three years (I think) the price would fall to $0 and the machine was free for you to keep at no cost.
  • This may be slightly off-topic.

    Can you distinctly remember one internet ad that really stuck in your mind like a tv ad sometimes can do? Such as the bud commericals. I really can't. Is this because of the lack of quality of the ads? or the medium? somthing to think about.
  • I've got a useful little download manager called ReGet that does this to. Funny thing is that when the ad kicked in at the end of the eval. period, it changed the way the traffic graph was displayed to a manner I was trying to do before, but couldn't. But I am getting a little tired of the ad now...
    Rest assured, if I get stuck with adware, you can bet I'm going to AstaLaVista to find the crack to kill the ad.
    I've been having fun hacking pointless stuff (games) recently - I think I might enjoy a patch to remove the ad in ReGet, even if I buy the product later... Can anyone give a jump start in my search?
  • They had to invest some $500 on each person, with no guarantee that the person would buy anything. That's a *huge* initial investment, and I see no way for them to get it back with profit.

    Actually, advertising is a rather exact science. There is one parameter to be maximized: profit. If a company invests in advertising, and this increases sales enough to bring more profit than what the advertising cost, it worked.

    Profit is the only parameter that matters to the advertiser. However, it's a different matter to the broadcaster. TV networks are _very_ interested in demonstrating to their advertisers what the audience was. They do not try to infer that any of the viewers actually *saw* those ads. What they want to do is to show what share of the total number of customers saw their program, compared to other advertisements. Remember that companies usually don't rely on a single medium for their ads. What audience research methods try to do is evaluate the relative merits of different media. Counting clicks in internet banners is a relatively easy and accurate method of evaluating this.

    Moderators, take note:
    1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything

  • I think this one eluded me till now. it would always be nice to have a free PC :), even if its to late, I was wondering what were the complete specs on the machines that they were supplying I heard someone mention K6-2 chips, could anyone tell me the complete package of what they "gave" to people hardware wise? thnx in advance
  • take broadcast television
    How is that still working? Between VCRs and remote controls, who still watches the ads? And with the occasional backlash against the chopping of scenes to fit in a few extra seconds of ads, I'm surprised that any company considers TV ads to be of benefit. Does TV advertising still work, or is it going the way of banner ads?
  • they are able to tell whether or not sales are increasing in response to specific ads.
    Really? Can they still tell these days? With so many things changing so quickly, how can anyone get any meaningful data out of such diconnected statistics? Remember, reports on the effectiveness of advertising are often prepared by people with an interest in seeing the industry continue - how can we trust them?

    (I personally believe that the Slashdot Effect may be the basis of a new advertising revolution.)

  • There are times when I see an interesting banner ad and visit the site later, but not trough the banner.
    Some advertising companies have found technology to defeat this problem. Doubleclick just got sued for something tangentally related...

  • Here's the email they sent me 2 Feb '00 (Score:5)

    by David Mooney ( 15076 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @06:28PM (#1257292)
    I snipped out the links because they contained my user id. Subject: FREE-PC PROGRAM TO BE DISCONTINUED

    Dear david,

    As part of our recent merger with eMachines, we have decided to terminate the Free-PC program. It was a difficult decision for us, but it's important for us to focus our resources on providing new desktop software applications for eMachines PCs.

    As a result, we are going to transfer title of your PC to you. This means that the PC is now yours free and clear. We will be destroying your credit card information, and we will be sending you written confirmation of this as well as the title transfer. We are also including instructions at the conclusion of this email so that you can remove the Free-PC Resource Center (the advertising display and utility buttons) from your screen. Of course, your warranty is still valid, and you can continue to receive technical support on your PC by dialing the appropriate number below:

    For Compaq Computers: (281) 927-5272
    For Dell Computers: (888) 560-8324

    As part of this change, we will be discontinuing our free Internet access service effective February 14, 2000. Between now and then, we encourage you to look into alternatives for connecting to the Internet. We'd like your transition to be as smooth as possible, so we've listed a few of the most popular free Internet service providers below, along with links to Web pages where you can sign up for their service. We'll also be sending additional information on each of these providers in separate emails. After February 14, our local dial-up numbers will no longer work. At that time, all @freepcmail.com accounts will also be shut down. All of the Internet service providers listed below can provide you with new email addresses. We encourage you to notify your family, friends and associates with whom you correspond about your new email address prior to February 14.

    AltaVista
    snip

    BlueLight
    snip

    WorldSpy
    snip

    For those of you who specifically requested that we send you occasional offers or information on particular subjects you were interested in, we will continue to pass along those offers as they come in. In fact, those offers may become even more attractive as we are able to negotiate even better deals now that we are representing literally millions of eMachines users as well. As always, if you find that these offers are no longer of interest, there are instructions within each email on how to remove your name from the mailing list for that topic.

    Finally, we would very much like to stay in touch with you and ask your opinion about the new software programs we are designing. If you would be willing to occasionally look at new programs and give us feedback, please click on the following link mailto:betatest@emachinesinc.com to send us an email letting us know.

    It has been our sincere pleasure to provide you with your Free-PC. We hope you will continue to get many hours of enjoyment from it. If you have any further questions, please visit our Web site at snip .

    Sincerely,

    eMachines Customer Support


    **INSTRUCTIONS FOR REMOVING YOUR FREE-PC RESOURCE CENTER**

    *Be sure you have signed up with a new Internet service provider before you do the following!*

    1. Turn on your computer.
    2. When the red COMPAQ or blue DELL logo appears, immediately press and hold the left SHIFT key.
    3. Keep holding down the key until you see the message "WINDOWS is running in safe mode".
    4. Release the SHIFT key, and click on the "OK" button.
    5. Once the computer has completely turned on, double click the icon "My Computer".
    6. When the "My Computer" window opens, double click the folder called "Program Files".
    7. Delete the "PC" folder by left clicking it so that it is highlighted and then press the "DELETE" key on the keyboard.
    8. Click "OK" if prompted.
    9. Click the "START" button on the lower left side of your screen, select "Shutdown" and restart the computer.

    -------------------------------------------------- -----------
    Although we sent this e-mail to you, eMachines makes no warranties or guarantees about the products or services advertised. If you do not wish to receive special offer emails from eMachines, click here snip to unsubscribe or update your interest profile.
  • if I was given statistics saying that when I advertise using X method I sell x percent more product than when I don't advertise at all, I would be pretty sure that advertising was effective
    But I'm questioning the reliability of such statistics, based on the huge number of unknown variables, and the bias of the people presenting the information.
    makes good business sense not to go against years and years of correlational studies
    Yes, but how valid are they? A lot of the behaviour I see of people around technology is, well, superstitious. A vague pattern quickly turns into a "scientific link", which then has to be repeated all the time so no one "loses face" - or their job. If a dozen things change and the overall result is positive, each person responsible for each change will always claim it's their work. Similarly, when things go wrong, it's someone else's fault...
  • "even if it were a dell" ?? Have you ever used a Dell? For what it's worth, I think they make pretty damned good systems. I use an Dimension at work, and I've never had a problem with it -- under Win98 or Linux. Everything works just dandy.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Re:The whole idea.... SUCKS! (Score:3)

    by inburito ( 89603 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @06:39PM (#1257298)
    Here's what I don't get. If someone can't afford a computer and an internet connection (That's about 300$ to start with and 13.95$/month) then how is this someone a viable target for advertising! I mean how much money can this poor person spend on the products advertised on his screen(to make up for the cost of the computer and the internet connection) if he can't even afford that 300$ computer! This idea doesn't work for poor people. It works for people who have the money, but wouldn't bother otherwise.. Maybe all the poor people got one of these and the advertisers didn't get anything in return(That 300$ they had to spend on the computer).. maybe it got discontinued because of this..

  • Darn (Score:2)

    by Otto ( 17870 )
    I signed up to get one of those just after they started the program.. I got an e-mail to sign up again a couple of months ago, which I did.. Still never got the system... Oh well. Missed the boat.

    ---
  • Reading off the box:

    380 MHz AMD K6-2
    512KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache
    64MB 100 MHz SyncDRAM
    4.3GB UltraDMA Quantum Fireball HDD
    32X MAx CD-ROM (IDE)
    Integrated 2X AGP (SiS 530)
    8MB shared video memory
    56K ITU v.90 modem

    and sound is also integrated onto the motherboard
    and a 15" Compaq MV520 monitor and JBL Pro speakers (and keyboard and mouse)

  • You are right about the sliding scale thing, but the "market price" had nothing to do with it.

    They wanted your credit card info because the computer was "worth" $500 the day it was delivered to you. Every month that you abided by their usage policy, it would be "worth" $10 less. So after a year, the computer would be "worth" $380... meaning that if you didn't abide by the usage policy and they wanted the computer back, you could either ship it back to them (at your expense) or pay $380 for it. Eventually, the $10/month would add up your owning the computer free and clear.

  • There is no proof of cause that the death was at all related to the impact.
    If you say that, then you can't possibly understand the difference between proof and circumstantional evidence. There is a difference between physics and advertising. There has been a gradual increase in the "media savvy" of the population. A growing minority can no see through the majority of advertising tricks - through to the raw information, stripped of the cheap trickery. Gravity will always hold true, but marketing has to evolve with the audience. The same marketing trick that worked 10 years ago may not work today, citing years of evidence means, again, you don't understand the issue...
  • yes, there will always be cracks around the banner ads.

    but the thing is they [qualcomm] aren't exactly _losing_ anything by releasing a banner ad version. look at it this way; anyone who would be willing to download a crack for the full w/ads version so they didn't have to look at the banner ads would be just as willing to just warez the normal, pay full version with no banner ads by default.
    in fact this kind of person has probably _already_ warezed the normal full version, and is unaffected by the announcement of the banner-ad version.

    anyway i'm sure it's easier to write an s/n generator for the full version than a cracked .dll that makes the banner ad window not display.Which isn't to say people won't make the cracked .dll version anyway; a lot of the time defeating copy protection is done sheerly for the challenge and fun of it, not to actually use the program in question. Basically the more complex the copy protection is to break, the more interesting to break it is and thus the more likely it is to get broken by somebody. I know this one old guy who's been an expert at cracking software protection since he started doing it on the apple //.. these days he actually goes and buys all his software legally, but once he's bought it he goes and finds or figures out a way around the copy protection, just because that's more fun than actually putting the real S/N in the dialog box.
  • FreePC failed for the same reason that any number of web startups are going to fail. They gave away PCs to just anybody, hoping that the add click through rates would pay to support the business. There is no way this will work unless you either have a truly gigantic audience, or a small targeted audience that you can also target adds to. You really have to have adds that your targets are likely to click on, rather than just radom stuff you are trying to sell them. An execellent discussion of this is in one of Robert Cringley's recent columns at
    http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20000203. html

    He describes a company he consulted with that had a very similar business model to FreePC and failed in a very similar way.
  • Look at /. they have banners. I don't have to click the banners, but i could also find a way to turn them off. But if I did that, as well as others, the advertisers would stop giving them money. I click on ads rarely as i would think others do as well.

    Until you mentioned it, I hadn't even paid attention to the fact that Slashdot had ads in the first place. No joke.

    The advertisement industry is dying in part because of the Internet, but not because advertising is cheap. The industry is dying because many of the people who actually buy things are using the Internet. Yet these very same people have gotten so completely sick of the ads that they ignore them. Eventually these people get sick of privacy-violating trash like Doubleclick, loads of cookies being blasted into their machines, annoying web sites which are purposefully designed so that you can't back out of them in Netscape, web sites which open new windows for no reason, annoying animated GIFs, porn advertisements, stupid pop up ads, USENET spam, and Email spam.

    Not only do I block advertisements, but I make value judgements on companies based on how annoying their ads are. If it's related to computers and they do something that really grates my nerves, I will never buy from that company if I have a choice. If they're popping up stupid ads in new windows, I will not give my business to that company.

    In some cases the ads are offensive. In many cases the ads are stupid. In almost all cases the ads are annoying. In the majority of cases the ads take up far more bandwidth than they're worth. Therefore, I block dedicated ad sites using Junkbuster. I block cookies except from some sites. I don't visit sites which are incompetently designed (e.g. using Java all over the place for no good reason) or which are designed to be annoying (e.g. opening every clicked link in a new browser window). If I keep seeing the same ad many times, I block that ad specifically.

    If the advertisement and website industries don't like this, then they can fix the problems without violating my privacy. I don't know how they'll do it, and I don't want to waste the energy thinking about it. Only very rarely do I buy a product because it's advertised on the TV or radio, and I have never bought a product bceause of an annoying pop-up or banner ad.

  • The Deal With Advertising (Score:3)

    by Flailey ( 154944 ) on Sunday February 20, 2000 @09:24PM (#1257348)
    This, methinks, is totally out of bound with the prevailing sentiment- but I think the advertising thing has been blown a little out of proportion. I hate annoying and intrusive ads, and I really hate spam email... but generally advertising does have a useful purpose. Namely, to let me know about things I might want. While I am scared shitless of people having too much personal information about me, I can't say that the ostensible goal - that is to customize ad messages to the people who are most likely to benefit from them - is all bad. I mean... i think most of us spend a huge portion of our time buying stuff and thinking about buying stuff... and if people want to let me know about how to buy stuff i want more or are paying less for then I'm a little disingenuous to bitch endlessly right?

    It's more the privacy issues and the annoying/intrusive stuff that everyone has a problem with methinks. I mean... advertisements are information... selling stuff makes up the economy... and this is the information economy right? It's making all the geeks rich, we can't complain too much.....
  • alt.tv is a huge billboard on the corner of the busiest intersection in Melbourne (AU, not FL). It shows video images, sound, and newsbites scrolling along the bottom. The screen is probably at least 30' x 30'...
  • How can the banks make something 'illegal'. They could try to say that it was against their merchant policy, but that's about it.
  • Don't ask your co-workers
    Trust me, my cow-orkers are not slashdotters. I s'pose you're right - TV advertising is probably the reason that the only non-alcholic beverage in the boardroom fridge is Coke, and company events are catered by KFC. (Actually, come to think of it, we buy KFC because someone knows someone who knows someone that can get us a discount...)

    I must say though that I've never actually seen any cow-orker purchase anything, so how can I say why they do it.

    All I know is that the stuff I buy has enough technical content that I have to have fairly particular items to do what I want. Or it's chosen for artistic, stylistic reasons (or both, eg; my 8810).

  • Although it might interfere with my recovery, I can at least admit to having seen the innards of countless Compaqs. Based on my experience, I think that the Compaq engineers are forced to design their systems to the following specifications:

    1. Every PC must be built around a new form factor. Designs may not be reused, and should change faster than the model numbers.

    2. All power supplies and motherboards must use unique power connectors that vary from model to model.

    3. Motherboards may only include three of the following:
    a. CPU Socket
    b. SIMM/DIMM slots
    c. PCI/ISA slots
    d. IDE/Floppy connectors

    Everything else must be placed on a daughtercard. Extra points for including more than one daughtercard in a system.

    4. Adding a drive must involve the removal of one of the following:
    a. Motherboard
    b. Daughtercard
    c. Secret Panel
    d. All of the Above (preferred)

    5. The case must not be penetrable by anyone (except its designer) in less than 20 minutes. A minimum of five removable panels should be utilized. One of the panels should not look like it could possibly ever be removed. The chief case engineer must have completed a terminal degree in Chinese Puzzle Box Design, with emphasis in Sadism.

    6. If opening the case is a tooless operation, three different obscure fasteners must secure everything inside. If case design includes traditional screws, they must be of mixed types and too numerous to count.

    7. Access to the drives should be obscured by at least one sliding plastic door. Bonus points for using multiple doors, or very brittle plastics.

    8. Every obscure multimedia connector known to man must extend from the front of the case. These are never intended for use, but are mandated by the marketing department. Proceed accordingly.

    9. All power control functions should be performed by the software. No button on the front of the case may do anything more drastic than put the PC in sleep mode. Reviving from sleep mode should take longer than a reboot, and cause random errors.

    10. Not all systems may follow these guidelines. Select at random which rules apply to your current design. Invention of new design criteria are encouraged, so long as they do not match any published specifications.

    Glad you folks are getting these boxen for free. Working on a Compaq plus being forced to view advertising may lead to insanity.

    Dell on the other hand tends to make fairly good PCs that use standard components. There may have been a time before the end of the 486 epoch that things were messier. ISTR that early pentiums could have had their own quirks as well, but my memory is a bit foggy. Glad its not my problem anymore...

    -BW
  • I've had a Freewwweb account for about 2 months, so far no boogy man has come to get me. I use it as a backup account.

    Eventually, when I'm <I>positive</I> the company's not going to fold tomorrow, I might decide to axe my regular ISP and go to it exclusively...but not yet.
  • First of all, Slashdot doesn't operate on a clickthrough basis, they operate on an impression basis. They get paid for you seeing the ad whether you click on it or not. Therefore, the 1/1000 part doesn't apply in this case. They only will need 109,000 hits per day to pay the 400k
    per year, assuming the $0.01 per ad impression
    rate, which is typical. Judging by the average
    slashdot effect, I'd say that 109,000 hits is
    easily in the bag.

    However, in the case of clickthroughs, they generally pay 10x as much since they have a better chance to profit from the ad if someone actually clicks on it then if they glance on it and never go anywhere with it.

    -Restil

  • I don't understand it either, but the success of cubic zirconia jewellery sold on the Home Shopping Channel would seem to prove us both wrong. Who buys tacky crap from the Franklin Mint ? Maybe it looks nicer in trailers or something, but it certainly isn't me buying it.

    Poor people still spend money -- and much of it is spent on trash.

  • The question, obviously, is - who wants to advertise to people that have no money to buy? It'd be just waste of advertising budget...
  • well, that's a pretty retarded way of looking at the demise of "wonderful" shareware. did you ever think that if a concept can't stand up to the fact that there are HUGE numbers of people in the world that have absolutely no problem with acting "dishonestly" if it's goign to benefit them (and, at the same time, not goign to involve taking a large risk), then the concept is weak and doomed to die?

    what makes shareware so wonderful? that it _assumes_ everyone is honest? that's a tragic flaw in the concept, not a strength. same goes for free-PC's-if-you-watch-our-advertizing. terrible, terrible idea to base your business on the assumption that everyone in the world is making decisions based on the moral values that you employ.
  • it's only sad to the people who don't take advantage of situations where it's easy to get away with something. why should your "morality" dictate the choices I make? if you leave yourself wide open to being taken advantage of, you deserve what you get.
  • hmm, ran out of letters in the title :)

    Speaking from my observations of people while practicing law for five years, the real dividing line between the middle & lower slasses is not income, but the planning horizon--and part of this comes from how you were brought up.

    For the middle class, saving, grabbing the better price, and a lng planning horizon is just part of life. "impulse" purchases exist, but in smaller quantities. Buy the $100 package now (even though it means doing without something else) rather than spend $10/month for a year. Plan your income over several months, rather than paycheck to paycheck (thought this isn't necessarily possible).

    I struggled taking economics (I have a Ph.D and am a professor of the subject) because of the notions of "rationality"--it just doesn't describe how a large portion of the population acts. We make models that describe how behavior changes when the interest rate changes, but for those who carry balances on credit charge, it's not the interest rate that tends to matter, or the price of the object, but the monthly payment. Taken to the extreme, $30/month forever looks better than $50 once.

    About once a month, I had the same conversation about Sear's cards with prosepective bankruptcy clients (many of whom didn't understand why *I* wouldn't let them make payments).
    "Here's my Sears bill, but it's wrong. It's the same as when I bought it two years."
    "How much do you pay each month."
    "THe payment they show me."
    "That's the minimum payment. And you have a late charge every month."
    The minimum payment is 2%, the interest rate 1.75%. That's a 400 month amortization schedule . . . (actually longer, because the payment drops over time).
  • They blink. And there aren't many places where you find larger concentrations of folks annoyed by blinking than here.

    I don't block ads per se. I block anything that blinks at me . . .
  • if I put myself into a situation where it is likely that I will get shot and I'm not wearing a bulletproof vest, I would be at least partially responsible for any injuries I sustained.

    if you go driving around with no seatbelt and I slam into your car and you die, don't you think you're somewhat at fault?

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