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British Colleges Selling Screen Saver Ad Space
gotroot801 writes: "The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that eighteen British institutions plan to generate income during the coming academic year by displaying advertisements on the computer screen savers of students, professors, and staff members. Why does this remind me of that Simpsons episode where Troy McClure is teaching a Pepsi-sponsored class?"
I hope these adds are as succesfull for colleges as pop-ups and banners are for dot-coms!
I'm the unofficial tech for my residence hall, and make a lot of "fix my computer" calls. You'd be suprised how many "Absolut" and other such products are featured prominately on my neighbors screens :)
We'll be seeing paid campaign ads all of the frickin' place. Crass commercialism I can handle but politicians really annoy me.
If you "bin" the screensaver, they withhold your degree?
It seems that there are already enough distractions.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I am a student. As such I have NO MONNEY! These kinds of ads will directly bennifit me. Tell me what student is going to complain about $100 bucks being knocked off of his/her tuition? Ya sure I don't apreciate the ads that are now everywhere in our lives. However, most of those ads bennifit someone else. These are for our financial(or quality of education) bennifit. Besides ads are already everywhere. I think for the most part we just ignore them. A few more are not going to make a major effect on our spending habits.
thats just my 2 bits.
Who can tell me the atomic weight of Bolognium?
Especially in areas where funding for schools is absolutely horrible. I know you anti-advertisement-nazis will jump all over this, but there is NO harm in showing some pepsi ads on the screen while no one is at the computer. I mean, hell, they might not even HAVE those computers if it weren't for the advertisements.
These schools need funding, they get it through showing advertisements in a non-obtrusive manner. I say that all underfunded schools should do this. Some school systems need as much money as they can get...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I have computers in my English class. You're SUPPOSED to type your papers on them and such.
I find that emulators run quite nicely over the network off my computer back at the dorm :)
You can't stick me in a class next to a computer and expect me to pay attention. Ain't happening, screensaver or no.
I can just imagine when Microsoft gets a hold of this idea:
IEXPLORER is not responding
When part of you is not responding, try BioV MultiVitimin.
Cultural note, people. British universities are effectively free - government funded - with comparitively tiny student fees, if any at all. Their alumni associations are small, and don't raise anything like the amounts their US counterparts do.
So...
They need the money, advertisers think it's a good idea, and students won't notice it after a week or two (even if they had cash to spend, which most don't).
Sounds like, Win/Win/Win to me, especially if the money goes on more books, computers or teaching staff.
Because you're an idiot.
You clearly need a grant for more education.
I don't want my web pages to have anything to do with circus elephants or ninjas, I want my pages composedby a bevy of bronzed babes.
It's not entirely clear whether they intend to do this only for university-owned computers or for student-owned computers as well. If this is only for the school's computers, I don't see too much problem with it. (I would see a problem if it turned into anything more than a screensaver, though). After all, it's the school's hardware, and a screensaver really can't interfere with work.
If they're talking about putting it on machines that belong to students, then this is objectionable in the extreme. Students have the right to control what software runs on the hardware they pay for, and I can imagine bad things happening when faculty demand to install it on incompatible platforms such as Linux.
I just don't see the point to piss off everyone in order for someone to make money.
Nothing more aggrevating than pointless and worthless ads. There is enough "air time" for buisnesses on TV and Radio that if you havn't heard of a certain product then you don't need it anyway.
"Why does this remind me of that Simpsons episode where Troy McClure is teaching a Pepsi-sponsored class?"
Why does the Submitter remind me of a few friends of mine who can relate *any* event to a Simpsons episode?
I agree that any extra funding you can get into the education system is a good thing. But I can also see that the type of adds would have to be choosen fairly carefuly. I can imagine raunchy adds for condoms or lingerie could seriously distract classes.
Obviously this is a good thing as many colleges are under funded in the UK (my dad works at a college where they are facing redundancies like several others here in Scotland) but there must be control as education should not be too dependant on companies. For example microsoft sponsored computer science departments serving up propaganda from the evil empire.
----
Emacs is a nice OS - but it lacks a good text editor. That's why I am using Vim.
"Madness is something rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule." -- Nietzsche
...of letting commercial interests take over a part of your computer network, I would like to know a few things:
- Are the computers counting how many times the ads are viewed? Wouldn't this constitute a privacy violation on their part?
- Are the ads going to be "click-through" to Internet sites, like the ones used in Bezerk's games? If so, wouldn't the university be concerned about the productivity lost?
- How do they plan to keep the software installed? Unless these are highly-public, short-term use terminals (i.e. email checking between classes) it will just be a matter of time before some clever employee or student removes the annoyance, permissions or no.
- If they've got all this space to spare, surely they'd be better off developing some SETI@Home-like software and using it for research. Is this really the best use of their computing resources, to bring more advertising to the campus?
Somehow, this seems like yet another brilliant idea by a marketing major.
Of course, we already know what direction the MBA's took 'eCommerce'.
Possible Arguement : I was just at a 7-11 and came up with a brilliant idea! They are making money by allowing someone to place ads on a monitor placed right by the check out screen. Can you imagine the income we could produce with all the monitors we have around our campus???
Has anyone else thought about how stupid this is? Screensavers come on WHEN NO ONE is at the computer!
without the banner ads that you all hate you wouldn't have this site...
... nor many open source projects hosted at sourceforge.
Infact, we have banner ads to thank for the growth of the internet (and many of our jobs) - without ads many web sites would not exist, because they would not make any money (bandwidth, servers, and above all - sysadmins aren't free!) - no google, yahoo!...
Advertising is a lose/lose game all around, because it increases costs without increasing value, yet if a producer tries to opt out they lose market share. It's a cognitive-environmental turn on the tragedy of the commons.
By the way, has anyone considered that advertising isn't effective unless it's distracting? Insofar as much learning is subconscious, isn't there an inherent conflict of interest as the material being advertised competes for "mindshare" with the material being taught?
Sell ad. space in open source tools:
% gcc foo.c -o foo
This compile brought to you by Jolt Cola. All the
sugar and twice the cafeine.
%
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
n/t
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Add placement is just one step closer to advertorial. Once schools become dependent on this revenue, advertisers will be able to dictate their policies on the threat of withdrawing it.
Will the screensaver time be forced to a certain value? Forbidden to be changed thru Windows system policies? What about turning off the monitor when you live? What about blacklisting the companies participating in the annoyance and starting a boycott? (College students ARE of the activist type, you know.)
reminds me of the Funzo episode.
It seems that (I guess not just in the US anymore) that we are moving toward a time where every "public" service is paid for by ads. At some point, it seems to me, that you'd reach a place where there are so many messasges hitting someone that they aren't effective.
Who in the world thinks of their screen saver as some sort of compelling mini-series they must watch (apologies to Scott Adams)? A thought that strikes me as a bit unsettling would be to go into a computer lab with 100 machines all extolling the virtues of Pepsi (instead of the 3D Flower Box).
I suppose it's not true anymore, but it seems that labs, classrooms, etc. should be places reasonably free of corporate sponsorship. It is inevitable that once something has a corporate sponsor, the message gets influenced (anyone remember Microsoft donating money with some strings attached to universities?), and schools, especially publicly funded ones, should be free of that type of "influence peddling".
My Fortune 100 company has propoganda screensavers running everywhere that encourages employees to meet our ship dates, with phrases like "let's have a blitz to get it done!".
I can't put my finger on why it bugs me so much.
I'd worry about the benefits of paying attention in English class instead of the money you'll be saving. It's not going to have much of an effect on your spending habits, but just think of all the benefits you could get with a good college education!
I mean, it looks like you're working so hard at it!
not much to say, just not crazy bout this
So the advertisements will be displayed on student's, professor's, staff's, and lab computer's desktops. That isn't too big of a problem (IMHO). But I may point out that a problem could be the target of those adds. If the corporations paying the $$ are trying to target an audience with liquidity to their cash flow, should't they target someone besides these same students at these underfunded universities? Unless college students suddenly have far more available $$ than they did 4 years ago when I was one of 'em.
robi
"You expect us to swallow this tripe?"
This will provided some well-appreciated incentives for students in IT security classes to discover firsthand the process by which systems are compromised.
Imagine how fun it'll be for the students to plaster their own deepest thoughts (tasteful mix of cursing and swearing, no doubt) instantly across every public computer screen on campus!
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
It's not new to see thing's like that. But it's always frustating !
At Virginia Tech, a required management course. It was sponsered by Virgin records.
I dropped the class after a whole lecture was devoted to a recently signed local band playing a set and some useless career advisor wasting my time telling me about internships.
College is more and more just becoming a scam for the suckers still willing to pay for it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Apart from someone walking past an unused computer who will see these things? The whole point of a screen saver is to keep the monitor busy when the computer isn't in use. My experience with college computer labs is:
- they are full, with people waiting in line to use machines
- or they are booked by a class
Perhaps they'd be better off powering down the monitor (saving $$) rather than firing up a screen saver (which doesn't help modern screens anyway).> British universities are effectively free -
> government funded - with comparitively tiny
> student fees, if any at all.
Yes, tuition fees were only bought in for students applying for entry in 1998 and are currently about £1000 per year, which I guess is very small compared to the US situation.
However, it should be noted that some Universities have also been proposing 'Top up fees' i.e. extra payments that the University thinks it needs to maintain high standards of teaching/equipment for courses.
Obviously students have opposed top-up fees, although I'm guessing that the issue will re-surface soon.
Perhaps this advertising (wrong as it feels) will be a way to avoid taxing the students?
-- Mike
Of course, the loss of "editorial" independence of the college is a serious peril.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
At least they don't rename their Electrical and Computer Engineering program to the local cable company!
And you thought that Disney webpage prank MIT pulled a while back was all for laughs!
Turn the damn monitor off.
The as the poster is thinking of has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R. The advertisment has a second name, it's M-A-Y-E-R:
Principal Skinner: We can buy real periodic tables, instead of these promotional ones from Oscar Mayer.
Ms. Krabapple: Now, who can tell me the atomic weight of bolonium?
Martin: Ohhh... delicious?
Karbapple: Correct. I would also accept snacktacular.
----------
I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
Isn't the screen saver that thing that comes up when you are NOT looking at the screen?
PBS went commercial many years ago, and my donations, and volunteering, ended. If they are getting money from big corporations, then they don't need mine.
I think the same thing applies to colleges. If they are going to go get money from other sources, then IMHO, they don't need as much from the government in the next budget cycle.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
but there is NO harm in showing some pepsi ads on the screen while no one is at the computer
Has it occurred to you that any intended impartiality (and thus quality) of education is immediately placed at risk when the interests of a third-party are involved? Consider: (1) Do you think an education should be questioning and impartial? (2) Do you think that your education will in all cases remain questioning and impartial should a conflict of interests arise between the educators and the sponsors? (As an example, we already have educational institutions that ONLY teach Microsoft software, in exchange for donations of computers from Microsoft.)
This sort of thing happens, and will happen more and more in the future, particularly as more advertisers (and universities) start to realise that they get much better results from a highly targeted audience - that is, companies specifically related to some field sponsoring education of students within that field. That of course is nothing new, but in the past the sponsorship has been quiet and behind-the-scenes, while currently the trend is towards not only more overtly visible sponsorshop, but editorial control of the content of lectures by the sponsors. So Pepsi is not a very good example, as they probably don't have much interest in whether Linux or Windows gets used in the labs. But other sponsors will; and the Universities will accept those sponsors above Pepsi because more targeted advertising means better results which means more money.
Schools do need money of course, so this may in many cases not be a bad thing. Where do you draw the line?
Regarding the "nazi" comment: although I realise it was probably just hyperbole for effect, I kind of resent the noxious implication of an immediate association between being "anti-advertisement" and being a nazi. As I have explained, there can be valid reasons to be against this type of advertising; its a lot harder to justify the kind of fanatical white supremacy associated with nazis :)
We need the the money to pay our electricity bills.
The shareholder is always right.
Over in the States (so I have no idea how this would actually affect the UK) there is this lovely clause in the Constitution hinting at a seperation between church and state (now don't even start that argument) . . . but my question is would a flat out ban on even any religious looking adds be used? Or would adds like the following be allowed ... "Be nice to everybody ...(sponsored by the Church of Bob)"
robi
I'm at Liverpool University doing EEng, and we have had this for months, it's called Screentime and it sux, it is NOT i repeat NOT a screensaver, it is a huge window in the top right corner of the desktop (about 1/4 of it) and it has clickthrough banner ads in it.. The thing that really gets me pissed is that they have disabled the task manager to stop ppl from closing it, which is all well and good until something actually crashes and you 'shock horror' actually need Taskman... sucks a large amount...
becuase I don't have to look at my monitor screen when I'm not using it. If compaines want to put ads on my computer - so long as they're not intrusive - then thats cool, especially if it saves me money. Besides - who said I had to leave my monitor on anyway? I always trun mine off to save my school power!! Perhaps students will just start turning off their monitors, and that will save electricity!! It's a winner no matter what happens!! Yay!
Am i the only one who noticed that by definition, screen savers are usually only activated when no one is around to see them? Unless the computer is in a highly public place and never gets used, which is not likely, the only people to see the ads would be the ones who come into the rooms in the mornings to turn them on(in the case of lab computers).
As for the student's personal computers, i don't see why anyone would volunteer to put adware on their computer unless they were paid for it. That is a waste of money though, because i know i would just turn off the monitor overnight and earn free cash.
Unless they are planning to put the ads into the desktop backgrounds(which is usually obscured by the Apps i run), I can't see how the ads would reach the audience needed to maintain profitability.
Let the flaming commence!!
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Forget the screen saver, just set the sleep mode timer to 5 min and put a yellow sticky on the screen that say, "Give your money to the GAP."
Ahh the advertisers are starting to get smarter. Now someone just needs to put advertising in lifts where they show the floor number, because when you're in a lift you always stare at the numbers rather than making eye contact.
But really is this such a big step? Right now Universities/Colleges accept money from businesses to aid in research, and businesses donate money for scholarships and the like. Many Universities/Colleges couldn't undertake research, or support there post-graduates if not for the money given to them by businesses. Is this altruism on the part of the business community? No, this is just advertising since all most of the businesses get out of it is the exposure of having there name touted about the place.
The more advertising, the more money Universities have, and the better it is for us students!
Microsoft could make a killing putting ads on the blue screen of death.
That's already happening here in Austria. The high school I used to attend has screensaver ads for an Austrian bank on all its computers; they even let that bank paint their logo onto the main building. I really didn't mind the ads, just that the screensaver kicked in every 2 minutes.
Regarding the "nazi" comment: although I realise it was probably just hyperbole for effect, I kind of resent the noxious implication of an immediate association between being "anti-advertisement" and being a nazi. As I have explained, there can be valid reasons to be against this type of advertising; its a lot harder to justify the kind of fanatical white supremacy associated with nazis :)
Don't worry, he Godwined himself.
EVERYTHING here is Coke. All Dining Hall beverages are made by Coke (Barq's, Fruitopia, Minute Maid, POWERaDE, Sprite, Dasani water, Crush, Dr Pepper, and Schweppes). All vending Machines are Coke products. The university student centers are home to different franchises such as Wendys and Steak Escape, but only those who sell solely COKE as beverages are permitted to lease this space. The Coca-Cola logo adorns University clocks, Sports Uniforms, campus scoreboards and Student Orientation shirts. We are used as a testing ground for new Coke products like the ill-fated CITRA and such.
Finding a Pepsi here is like finding a copy of Debian in Redmond.
But for all the advertising blitz its not that bad. Coke almost directly sponsored our new University network. They keep tuition down to almost bearable levels. They get direct beverage reign over 40,000 caffiene hungry college kids and we get cheaper tuition. Im all for it!
Hoorah for advertising efficiency!
Advertising is, in and of itself, deteremental to the freedom of thought, whereever it exitsts. The sole purpose of advertising is to change the opinion of those advertised to towards the desired opinion of the advertiser. Pepsi wants you to think two things: that consumerism is the path to happiness, and that consumption of Pepsi is the ideal path to consumer bliss. The first of their tenants is the most significant; the consumer culture is the dominant culture in the Wester world, making institutions of higher learning very significant places vis-a-vis societal decisions regarding said culture. If the consumer culture is ever to be altered or removed, it is the institutions of higher learning which will be instrumental in effecting that change. Thus, to have private interests on _either_ side of the consumerism debate press their views within the school environment, and press those views through the medium of advertising, is detremental to society's future direction vis-a-vis consumerism, if only because it limits the ability of important members of society to choose freely where they stand on the issue.
On the issue of funding; while schools may be short of money for chalk, blackboards, or CRTs, this is no excuse for the erroding of the very purpose of the school. As I have outlied above, advertising is counter-productive the program of a school in general. Thus, if a school finds itself short of money, it should and must raise the funds it needs from legitimate sources; in the case of the United Kingdom, this is very clearly the state (if you do not know already, the state funds schools in Great Britian to a very large extent, nearly- or completely eliminating the need for student fees). If the stone of government has run dry, tell the student to wear sweters in winter; reduce expenses; be inventive. Do not, however, fundamentally comprimise the purpose of the institution on the alter of the e-classroom.
Does this mean that every student will be required to install the universities screen saver program? What kind of consequences would a student face if he/she refused to do so? And since the computers of these students donot belong to the university, do they have any right to demand so?
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Durham (my University) was doing this in 1999/2000 when I was in my final year. The screensavers were ads and then when you logged in there was a floating window with smaller ads with no close button or minimize button. The only way around it was to use taskman to kill it, which of course most people didn't know about or to use a unix box. They didn't do it on student machines, but it wouldn't surprise me if they started to. To get a student machine on the network you had to submit it to the IT department for a day for them to install some "useful" software and a NIC if you didn't have one. So it wouldn't be too hard for them to add a screensaver with advertising to every student machine and most people wouldn't know how to remove it.
The above was composed by me, Egg Troll.
Hahahaha!
/. bitchslapped me!
--Egg Troll, posting AC because the cockgnomes that run
\m/ \m/
Whoever can hack into the ad server (they say it's a network-based screen saver) and change the ads into some anti-ads will be my hero.
made you look you stupid fuck.
YEEEHAAAA!! gonna catch me some trolls and make'em my gimps!
Studying is expencive and I hope these adds will lower the fees somehow. .be this we don't really need this because the government pays most off it and if your parent don't make enough money you'll get in for about 30% of the real deal. ;)
In
Anyway, I just hope they don't go spamming as a next step
42 + 1 = 42
I think this is excellent for all schools except grade schools (K-12) where it's advertisers are Pepsi and Coke (as it is in some Northern Californian classrooms). These kids are too impressionable and drinking sodas all day isn't too good for them or the teachers. But when it comes to colleges I think the students have enough knowledge to know better. I wouldn't buy Laramie smokes because my monitor told me to.
if common sense was common, wouldn't everyone have it?
Commercials are just commercials ... most people just ignore them. Having Windows as the OS on those computers is much worse, though, as it inoculates habit. Consumer education in other words.
The Raven
Wow, I guess if we show ads on screen savers we'll never find out about those hideous aborted fetus experiments in the Pepsi Labs...
evil adrian
As long as there are some Pepsi ads featuring Britney Spears!
Has internet advertising worked?
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
The word is "taboo."
On the other side of the pond, those who whine about "church-state separation" are considered daft (that means stupid, dull, or dimwitted, folks). The church has been entangled with the state for quite some time and most everyone is quite satisfied with it.
Here's a poll for you... How long before: - They have advertisements in text books - They have advertisements in the classrooms - They pay professors to wear clothing or carry bags with advertisements on them - They pay to have advertisements tattooed on the back of your eyelids (grin)
This is getting ridiculous. British colleges/universities are achieving new lows. They charge extorsion money for their courses to all those outside of the EU (usually > $13,000 per academic year) and they keep enrolling foreign students who can barely speak English. Then they somehow manage to graduate them despite their abysmal language skills. I'm not xenophobic by saying this. I was a foreign student in Britain between 1992 and 1998. Last two years of my studies I saw the levels of education quickly decline while the oveseas tuition fees went through the roof at the same time. They became huge government approved money machines. What they are doing with this is their greed getting beyond belief. And note that I'm not talking about those colleges that pretend to be universities. In my case I'm talking about the University of Edinburgh. Last five years it's gone downhill so much it's not even funny. British education ain't nearly what it used to be.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Excellent! Of course, some schools e.g. MIT aren't even sane enough to be using DPMI...
Were that I say, pancakes?
Did you read the whole post? Or just hit "reply" after the first paragraph? Read the whole explanation, your counter-argument already anticipated and countered.
..
Or was it just a joke? In which case its quite funny actually
http://www-building.arct.cam.ac.uk/westc/cl/cl.htm l
The new CompSci building is partly funded by Microsoft, who are also putting an MS Research building on the site.
I'll hopefully be studying there soon, and _AFAIK_ it won't make any difference who it was funded by, though it does make me shudder slightly to think I'll be studying in the "William H Gates building".
Can't we have any place where we're valued as something more than just consumers?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Some people are talking about similarities to a Simpsons episode. I think this is more like a Daria episode.
Que ironico.
Time to be modded down nonetheless...
"Your school using screen savers to generate revenue" would be great on this list.
Alas it is too late to post.
badness 10000
The problem is getting all the students to install the software. While this system would be easy to implement on university owned computers (install, and don't give students the admin password, which they shouldn't have anyway), how do you get this software on student owned machines? So how do you make all the students install this software on their computers that they own? Especially for students who use MacOS or some form of unix. And how will you enforce it, search all dorm rooms every so often for computers without the screensaver?
Not to say you don't have to accept it, but *do* look it in the mouth, and take precautions.
The real concern with these agreements is not the advertising, but future censorship/blackmail from the sponsors
Yes advertising is intrusive, that's it's purpose.
But don't be distracted by the advertising, beware when the sponsers make "requests" for things from the schools, such as changing student behaviour, changing school policy etc.
I won't even consider the issue of trying to force students/staff to install Ads on their own machines, but as someone who used to work for a university, I can appreciate how much time computers in labs sit unused ... running a distributed.net client (or something similar) might be productive, but if a lab is only half full, that's a lot of screen realestate (that people at other machines still see) going to waste.
... just about anything that had informative value would be better then the geometric shapes that are dancing across thousands of school computers at any given moment.
I'm generally opposed to companies exerting influence over the educational system, (for the same reason other posters have pointed out) but what about putting those screens to good use for non commercial purposes? Screen saver space could be donated to NonProfits or campus activism groups to get out their message. Headlines from school, local, or national newspapers could be displayed
-- The Hoss Man
I'm waiting to see who buys out the Blue Screen space: Can you imagine it if RedHat bought it out. "Well, another BlueScreen: Don't you wish you were on RedHat Linux today?"
OS/2 - because choice is a terrible thing to waste.
So what the heck is the deal? I read through the article, and couldn't seem to find anything that told me how they are going to get the screensaver onto the students computers. How the heck are they going to do this?
Is part of the internet connection that you sign up for in your dorms going to be a requirement that you put this screensaver onto your machine? I would be royally pissed if my university would make me put a screensaver onto my computer, just so that they could a load of money off of me. That would just seriously....argh!!! Just the thought of this aggravates me.
Would it be a forced install over the network? If so, I would just install ZoneAlarm or set up a firewall under Linux or Win2k. I'll be damned if someone is going to install software on my computer that I don't want. And even if they do get the software on my computer, just shut your screensaver off (they are essentially pointless with many of today's monitor anyway).
So yeah....anyone have more information on this, or things like this? I would be really interested in reading more on this....
Why does this remind me of that Simpsons episode where Troy McClure is teaching a Pepsi-sponsored class?"
Maybe because you watch too much Simpons.
Oh wonderful... Given that college labs are major hackfests, the admins usually load up a server with an image and re-image machines every so often... sometimes they set up a job to do it at night...
Who's up for cracking the server and mod'ing the image to have a naked bimbo w/the gynmastics TA (pun intended) on it? That will get rid of those advertisements right quick...
And if some genius decides to make them a 'channel' all ya gotta do is set up a box to spoof the address of the channel broadcaster some place inside the lab so you can put up whatever you want... Oh yeah, this is pure unadulterated college prank target material... It should last about 3 days...
Viruses attacking *.scr files in the \Windows directory anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
And notwithstanding the hack potential, some religious zealot will complain about being exposed to the Satanistic Pepsi commercials on every screen, and it'll be removed...
So, they foud a new place to have ads in. What's new here? The ads are already everywhere. How many steps can you take without seeing somekind of brand or small add?
-Jaakko
It's been going on for ages, albeit with posters and drinks machines. What's the big deal about screensavers? See http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/Archives/cace-00-02.h tm.
However, if they were creating pop-up ads partway through lectures / exams, that would be pretty bad. A couple of years before that happens I guess.
I see the headlines "This bluescreen brought to you with support from Budweiser". or something. Oh my.
Dunno if I'm late or stupid posting this (corporate social responsibility my arse/ass) but it caused a hell of a stink in the UK at the time.
Yes UK universities do need the money, but at what price? I'm having nothing to do with it - I smoke B&H.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
'plan to?' Manchester University has had such a scheme for a year now. It takes up a quarter of the Windows background while you're using the PC and turns into a screen saver while you're not using the PC. Come over and have a look if you want.
I'm not too bothered about it; It generates us a bit of income so we can afford CD burners and I've become immune to adverts anyway.
These schools need funding, they get it through showing advertisements in a non-obtrusive manner.
The grad school I attended (in the UK) sold space on the "Active Desktop" to advertisers. Now that was annoying, when logging in you had to wait a minute or two before the ads would arrive, and the machine would be bogged down until they did.
Fortunately, my class almost never used to undergrad labs, but I pity the poor students who were stuck with this.
I can't understand the British education system's obsession with buying computers (and expensive, inferior software). Good teachers, good books, good libraries and good working environments are far more important than having the most bang-up-to-date and expensive computers for most things. The exception, of course, is in science and engineering, where decent supercomputers and networks of beefy workstations are required.
Thin clients are what they need for net access, word processing etc.
Before the Arts students get a new Pentium IV network for writing their Word documents, they should up the pay of the lecturers.
(I'm not in Higher Education, just having my morning rant)
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Just wanted to say that even though our university doesn't get MS software as donation it's pretty much what they teach. After all it's probably the software you use after graduation and on the other hand teachers likely know enough about other systems to teach those.
In the end, I'd be upset if sponsoring would affect the things we're teached (not allowing to tell about competitors products or so), but if it's only ads I'm all for it.
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Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
....instead, they should allow advertising from breweries. Let's get it straight: there are two things you do during your student time, sit in (boring) classes and party at night drinking beer after beer. So an obvious advertisement partner would be a brewery. Now, *that* would be usefull...I think I'd enjoy going to classes more, with scantly-dressed ladies advertising [insert brand here] beer. Aaaah! Student life....too bad it's long gone for me.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
...and I'm happy with that.
I'll try to explain a few key related principles of social democracy paradigm on education in most of Western Europe (excluding, of course, the UK, that has a much more individualist paradigm, just like the US).
In social democracy, a key value to education is impartiality. Education should give citizens a sense of criticism. This keeps society healthy when dealing with new evolutions.
A little example.
A school A magazine editorial criticises company X for something bad (environment, social, whatever). Allowing this is part of the school's effort to teach students a critical view of what's happening. It is seen as a Good Thing (TM).
Imagine company X stops funding the school magazine after this critical review. Funding goes to another, less critical school B. School B is seen as worse than school A, because it offers less education towards an attitude of structured, well argumented criticism. Still, school B gets more funding than school A.
Within a social democrat way of thinking, advertising lowers the value of education substantially, because it financially favors those institutions limiting well-argumented criticism.
The high value attached to absolute impartiality is the main reason for not allowing advertising or sponsoring in education in many European countries.
How much per seat would they save if they forced energy saving screensavers on everyone?
Maybe they mean the computers that are bought for students to use around the university, rather than their own personal computers.
Do you have any better hostages?
The universitiy of Iceland has been doing it for some time now... As long it's screensavers only, then I have no problem with it.
Typical open source geek attitude... destroy all the business models except for selling advertising and then bitch and complain when someone even tries to do that.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
Q: Why does this remind me of that Simpsons episode where Troy McClure is teaching a Pepsi-sponsored class?
A: Because it's an almost identical concept.
Sorry...
In the spoon, there is no Soviet Russia!
University of Wales Swansea were doing this from the start of semester one, september 2000.
:))))
Not only did we have rotating screensavers, but also ALL the NT boxen (maybe 10,000 of them) had been set up with an interactive desktop, displaying rotating adverts - and the "disable active desktop" switch had been greyed out!!!!!
Can you say "resource hog"? it took 20 minutes to load up Word on some of those boxes!
shin0r - ps there's still some IRC proxies floating about in the swan.ac.uk subnet
They have had screensaver adverts on public terminals at Durham University for over a year now.
The company involved is called Screentime.
Tim
Forget putting ads in screensavers. Why not put them in exam papers? Students sitting there, staring at the page for three hours, can't miss.
it may not affect your spending habits, but this move is just an indication of what's happening. as we continue to ignore the ads, ad agencies are going to have to try harder and harder to get our attention, which means crap like this is going to keep happening until our lives are super saturated with advertisements. every form of comunication used today has their own version of advertising, and any form of comunication we come up with will also be a medium for advertising.
Can't keep up with the drugco mergers and acquisitions? Stick with homegrown.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
College campuses already have a TON of advertising, in everything from the student newspapers to the yearbooks. Advertising screensavers are actually LESS intrusive--because (yes, this is redundant) nobody actually sits and stares at their screensaver for long periods of time (unless you're the guy in the cube next to me that does way too many hallucinogens). At least the colleges are making money off it--and they get a chance to put their own 'propaganda' in to boot.
I didn't see anything in the article indicating that computers OWNED by students would be affected, is anyone here close enough to the situation to know?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
North Carolina A&T, a small college in North Carolina, changed it's name to Jordan University for a day. This in response to sponsorship by the Jordan brand. Chicago Tribune Story
That's what I was thinking, but the article is pretty lean on the details. Maybe someone should call the university =)
Twas a joke; I can't take anything anyone posts on slashdot seriously. :-)
evil adrian
hawk, esq.
I rest my case. However, it is monney because I AM CANADIAN!!!!
Wow. I spend a lot of time in Canada, and I don't think I've ever seen money spelled that way. Maybe you're trying to make a joke that it takes more (Canadian) monney to equal (U.S.) money. In that case you should spell it "monnney" or even "monnnney".
To understand what's right and wrong, the lawyers work in shifts ...
My university got lots of hardware from Sun... and suddenly all of the old courses were phased out, to be replaced by Java courses.
...is that it's far too open-minded for that. They wouldn't go evil-empire quite so easily as that. And anyway, even the research department isn't like that - (Show-off ON) I know the person in charge of that place (Show-off OFF), and the culture doesn't seem like that at all. They run Linux at home (and work), for goodness' sake!