July 25, 1999

Now, Endless Words From Our Sponsor

By MATT RICHTEL

ALO ALTO, Calif. -- Along with 10,000 other lucky souls, I recently received a brand-new personal computer for the low, low price of nothing. The only catch is, it is trying to wrest away control of my brain.

The computer, called a Free-PC and sent by a company of the same name in Pasadena, Calif., is part of a new concept in computer distribution. Users pay not a dime for the PC, but they have to pay it attention, specifically to the perpetual presence of advertising on an inch-wide vertical strip on the right edge of the screen and an inch-and-a half strip along the bottom.

Colorful high-tech enticements swirl with animation, pleading to remove me from the task at hand, be it word processing, surfing the Net or sending e-mail. If Times Square and the Home Shopping Network were to mate, the offspring would look like this screen -- as if, at any moment, Michael Jordan might pop out and try to sign me up for MCI.

Related Article It's a Land of the Free (Computer) (July 8, 1999)

But the masses seem amply ready to ante up their eyeballs. After Free-PC Inc. announced earlier this year that it would give away 10,000 PCs with Internet service, more than a million people signed up. In applying, they had to answer 37 personal questions online (about marital status, pet ownership, entertainment tastes and so forth), so Free-PC could load up their computers with focused commercials.

The winners were chosen at random (the company agreed to supply my computer separately), and Free-PC plans to study the launch to determine whether to dole out more.

But are we ready to stare down Madison Avenue 24 hours a day, and have it stare right back, especially during intimate moments spent writing love letters or playing Tetris?

W. Frank Johnson thinks so. "If this doesn't work for you, I'll take it off of your hands," said Johnson, my Federal Express delivery man, when he brought my PC. Expressing an oft-heard sentiment among Free-PC believers, he said the constant flow of advertising was a small price to pay for an otherwise free ride, and that, besides, you could always try to ignore the pitches.

I concede, at least, that a new, free computer can be a sweet deal. The Free-PC offering is a Compaq Presario with a 333 megahertz processor, 4.5-gigabyte hard drive and 56K modem. That's a $500 value, plus unlimited Internet service that usually runs $19.95 a month.

Given the falling prices of PCs, other companies like Intersquid.com and Direct Web, are giving them away, too, but their deals require paying for monthly Internet access. For now, Free-PC is the only company that trades a machine and the service for a bit of your subconscious.

As for the machine, in a few days of tests it performed on a par with any other new PC, meaning that it crashed periodically and for no apparent reason. On several occasions, I could not log on to the Internet, the computer froze when more than one window was open, and some bug interfered repeatedly with the most important activity on any computer -- playing solitaire.

Alas, I couldn't get Free-PC's technical support on the phone; the number was busy each of the four or five times I called over two days.

Clicking on an advertisement occasionally brought up the wrong Web sites. In one case, I clicked on the commercial for a home loan service and wound up at a site advertising software to eliminate computer bugs. (In addition to its other features, the Free-PC evidently comes with a strong sense of humor.)

As for the advertising, I can say one thing with certainty: There is plenty of it. And it squeezed the rest of the viewable screen from 14 inches diagonal to about 11. As a result, while the ads are vivid (and from the likes of Amazon.com, Ebay and CDnow), I sometimes had to squint to see smaller type -- the Web addresses I entered, for example. After an hour, I would have gladly clicked on an ad for eye drops.

And when I called up a Web page that included a banner ad, half to two-thirds of the screen was filled with blinking, animated commercials. It was akin to watching "Must See TV" in the center of the screen while Honda hawked the Accord on one side and Taco Bell touted the Burrito Supreme on the other. To me, it was more like "Must Smash TV."

I would like to report that I was immune to the advertisers' temptations. But that would make it difficult to explain how I wound up on CDnow, checking out the new Liz Phair album, and exploring air fares on Farefinder. In a moment of boredom, I also considered filling out an application, found on a mortgage site, to refinance a home. (That would have been particularly odd, since I'm not a homeowner.)

Of course, my susceptibility explains why some advertisers are ecstatic about the prospects. "The most valuable real estate in the world is the computer desktop," said Rich LeFurgy, chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau.

On a subsequent delivery, Johnson, the Federal Express man, took another look at the Free-PC and said the ubiquitous advertising wouldn't bother him a bit. "Our brain is capable of ignoring the advertising," he told me confidently.

Sure, I said to myself, that's what I used to think, too. Now tell me where to sign for my new Liz Phair CD.

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Matt Richtel at mrichtel@nytimes.com welcomes your comments and suggestions.

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