NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> free internet appliance
ONLINE-ADS>> free internet appliance
Mark Dolley (mark_at_zapworks.com)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 09:19:54 -0500 (CDT)
Andy Bourland wrote on 8/24/98 1:56 PM:
>Here's my crazy idea: Have the above mentioned industry players get
>together to design such an internet appliance. Find a way to GIVE
>IT AWAY to consumers, in exchange for demographic and consumer
>preference information and instant ordering capability being
>hardwired into the system they receive. Marketers could fund the
>giveaway by paying to get access to this growing -- but
>well-defined -- mass audience.
>
>For all the talk about privacy, I think people would be more than
>willing to exchange their demographic and preference information
>for a free internet appliance with free internet access and free
>media rich email as well.
>
>Is it worth kicking around?
It is of course a great idea. Given the need to for a mass market,
significant usage and a cheap appliance, lets assume we're talking
set-top box here. Unfortunately Andy's plan won't work solely on a
corporate basis, in the current market environment, for many reasons.
Here are a few:
o in order to work as a marketing tool, the appliance would have to
deliver rich-media advertising. Bandwidth along the "last mile" to the
home would therefore have to be part of the deal. So the device would
face competition from telcos, cable companies, _at_Home, Worldgate et al.
Can you see them all co-operating to offer a single box?
o a new company pitching the idea to VCs would be told it smelt too
much of PowerAgent (material reward in exchange for demographic info) and
that there's no point competing with Microsoft and WebTV, as well as all
those above;
o if the price of privacy is paying for my own set-top box, I'll
gladly buy the box.
Of course, the government could always try and impose a generic set-top
box on the cable companies, with Internet access as part of the spec. In
that case, cable companies might seek to fund the boxes via advertisers -
they could drive market share by tapping into users prepared to swap
demographic info for a free box. The current issue of Wired points to
government-ordained, generic set-top boxes as a possibility for 2005...
(Wired 6.09, page 70; see also http://www.opencable.com). Make a V chip
part of the spec and even a Republican congress might go for it.
A few years ago a similar idea for digital TV came up in the UK. The
government would build the box and distribute it for free. To pay for the
box, the government auctions off the spectrum and bingo, a nation is
upgraded. This plan appears to have been shelved for the politically
expedient choice of letting Rupert Murdoch control the boxes - in
exchange for Murdoch's media properties supporting the Labour Party.
France might have been capable of such a move and there was talk of
France Telecom launching an Internet-capable set-top box initiative. But
even there, the government is restricted from intervening because of a
European Union open-competition policy.
But in a centrally-planned economy there would be no need for advertising
anyway, right comrades?
Mark Dolley z a p w o r k s !
vox:(+1) 415 543 8600
> http://way.nu/advertising
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