A UK marketing company is bringing back the concept of the "free" PC. Metronomy Desktop Marketing will distribute a PC manufactured by IBM to users willing to watch a given amount of advertising while online, according to its Web site.
The company is signing up UK users who will receive a free IBM PC if they agree to watch 3 minutes of advertising for each hour they are online. Users are required to maintain an account with an Internet service provider and use the computer for at least 30 hours a month.
The London company plans to launch in early 2004, and the first shipments of the IBM PCs will take place in February or March, it said on its Web site.
Give and Take
Customers will receive an IBM PC with a minimum configuration that includes a 2.4-GHz Celeron processor from Intel, 256MB of memory, a 40GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive, a 15-inch CRT monitor, and Microsoft's Windows XP Home Edition.
In exchange for the PC, users will have to agree to watch 1 minute of advertising for every 20 minutes of time spent online, Metronomy said. They can postpone the ad for 5 minutes if they are playing a game or completing a transaction, the company says on its Web site.
Metronomy will send users a CD-ROM with new advertisements that must be uploaded each month or the PC will not work, the company says on its Web site. It will monitor only the number of advertisements that the user watches, not any other online activity unrelated to the ads, it says.
A Metronomy representative was not immediately available for comment. An IBM spokesperson did not return a call seeking comment.
Willing to Watch?
A number of companies popularized the free PC giveaway strategy in the late 1990s, including Free-PC.com, which later merged with E-Machines.
The idea fizzled out because companies couldn't find enough people who were willing to watch the advertising, even in an era when PCs cost significantly more than they do today, says Stephen Baker, director of research for NPD Techworld, in Reston, Virginia.
"PCs are so cheap. Why do you have to get a free PC and submit yourself to advertising?" Baker says. PCs are available from Walmart.com in the U.S. for about $200, and from large vendors such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard for about $400.
Metronomy might also have difficulty attracting advertisers to its service, because people who can't afford a $200 PC aren't likely to have much disposable income to share with advertisers, Baker says.
Ad Choices