Free PC!

Dateline: 2/10/99

Update: This offer is no longer available.

A free PC? One company is making this unbelievable offer a reality. Free-PC.com, an idealab! company, is taking applications to give away 10,000 free computers. If your profile (based on your application) is one of the 10,000 best matches for their advertisers you get one. The offer is for US addresses and they expect to ship in the second quarter of 1999.

So what's the catch? The computers are setup to display advertising anytime they are being used. If you take a look at this screenshot you will notice that the 800x600 working area of the screen is surrounded by advertising. Half of the 4 gigabyte hard drive is devoted to advertising that is updated when you go online. you also get free Internet access and email provided by NetZero. For more information about NetZero you can see this review.

What kind of PC do you get for free? It's more powerful than you might suspect. It is a 333 Megahertz network computer by Compaq. It includes a 15 inch monitor, 32 megabytes of memory, a 33.6 modem, 2 gigabytes of usable disk space and a diskette drive.

Will people be willing to put up with constant advertising whenever they boot up their PC? The success of this concept depends on it. It's a certainty that they will easily get 10,000 applications that match their prime advertising profile. The main problem I see is that the people who are most likely to need and use the free computer may not be the ones who will be the biggest spenders. This is definitely a bold marketing gamble. Let's see if they offer a second round of 10,000 free computers or drop the idea down the road.

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