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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 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.
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 --
...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?
Except that during the next budget cycle, the Universities will have to figure in this revenue and the government will likely give them less in the same kind. Net gain to University in the long term: 0. We won't even mention what might happen to academic freedom if this takes off. How about the Glaxo-Welcome College of Pharmacy at Oxford where students aren't even allowed to be taught about drugs made by other manufacturers?
Think it can't happen? Colleges in the US are already suppressing some research because of patent entanglements with corporations. My advice to the British is not to let this camel's nose into the tent without a lot of hard glances.
That is all.
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?
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.)
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".
I fail to see how paying for ads that are purposefully placed where people aren't looking is a win.
Of course, the loss of "editorial" independence of the college is a serious peril.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
I don't think that X10's ubiquitous ads prove that they are effective. They just prove that ad space on web-sites is now dirt cheap.
The reason that they are dirt cheap was the reason for my original post. People ignore them. Thus, advertisers are not willing to pay much to have them posted. Thus, dot-coms that rely on being paid to post them are failing.
It is only confusing if you can't distinguish the parties that pay to advertise from the parties that are paid to post the ads.
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 :)
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.
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?
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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?