Would You Use a Free Netbook From Google?

Glyn Moody writes "The response to Google's Chromium OS has been rather lukewarm. But suppose it's just part of something much bigger: a netbook computer from Google that would cost absolutely nothing. Because all the apps and data are stored in the cloud, storage requirements would be minimal; screens are getting cheaper, and the emphasis on lean code means that a low-cost processor could be used. Those relatively small hardware costs could then be covered by advertising in the apps — after all, they are just Web pages. Interestingly, Google has not only rolled out advertising to more of its services recently, it has also started running AdSense ads in the desktop application Google Earth. Would you accept a free Google netbook — or is the price you would pay in terms of the company knowing even more about what you do on an hour-by-hour basis just too high?"

Comments

Not possible

[sopssa]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook. And the same users would be doing those searches and ad clicks anyway, so it serves no purpose.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Re:Not possible

[Glyn Moody]

Yes, but what about a $20 netbook? That's the issue: when hardware costs fall to the point that the numbers work, what happens then?

Re:Not possible

[slim]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

I agree with this, although I think the hardware could be *much* cheaper than $150. Say $50, in time. But still advertising couldn't cover 100% of it.

But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

I have a Google Docs spreadsheet right here entitled "Warwick office Christmas Lunch 2009".

Along with the column headings, there's a good chance Google's systems could guess it's a good place to advertise restaurants and pubs near Warwick.

How many spreadsheets contain the name of a product, with the price alongside it? That's a signal to advertise that product.

Re:Not possible

[rolfwind]

I don't think it has to be a $150 netbook. If all you are doing is regular internet surfing sans flash, an OLPC level book should be fine, and that was designed to be $100 years ago (although not quite reaching that level).

The problem with free is that people won't value it enough to take care of it. They'll just trash it and move onto the next thing. But a $50 or $100 netbook would be huge for customers. Anything else on that level is usually a crappy toy.

And just like Microsoft counts on people growing up on their OS, google could do the same here. Of course, I don't know if such a netbook will be worth it in the end in America, but definitely in third world countries.

Re:Not possible

[eldavojohn]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook.

Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years. And even if the netbooks had decent hardware, look at the number of servers Google runs to provide free and paid services ... now what if you had idle processes on netbooks using up spare Atom (or whatever is out there) CPU time? Think about it, it could be the user footing part of your server energy bill.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

Well, your logic works both ways. Why would I want to be bothered with ads when I'm busy working on my e-mail? And the data in a spreadsheet says a lot, if their doing their finances, you offer them financial products. Numbers and abbreviations give away a lot. If they are using scientific notation, you give them scientific product ads. It's also a single piece of Google's offerings. Docs and gmail are much more useful to me.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

You didn't list a lot of innovative ideas for their strategy to mitigate hardware cost and you also ignore the rapidly falling costs of hardware that the OLPC tried to take advantage of. I'm confident that if they embark on this endeavor, it will be well thought out and phased. I think you underestimate your worth in the eyes of Google and what it means to have you as a resource--both in purchasing power and generating content as a contributor.

Re:Not possible

[j00r0m4nc3r]

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Man, it's a good thing that Google has you to make tough judgements like that for them. Where would they be without you?

Re:Not possible

[oldspewey]

Then you start to see netbooks in those big centre aisle bins at WalMart under a sign that says "Price Drop! $24.87", and consumers react accordingly when they see service providers offering a similar netbook for free.

Re:Not possible

[oldspewey]

How much will it cost to get you to respond to this thread again? I'll take up a collection.

Re:Not possible

[Roger W Moore]

It would also be a good place to store a Linux distribution...of course that might not display the ads which is why I highly doubt that Google will do it. It would be far too easy to strip out the Google OS and install your own.

Re:Not possible

[ShakaUVM]

Who said the netbook cost $150? I would guess that the bulk purchases and low requirements could allow them to cut that down to sub $40 within four or five years. And even if the netbooks had decent hardware, look at the number of servers Google runs to provide free and paid services ... now what if you had idle processes on netbooks using up spare Atom (or whatever is out there) CPU time? Think about it, it could be the user footing part of your server energy bill.

+1 insightful

That might actually be what this is all about... getting users to pay for the electricity to run a grid. Especially if the netbook doesn't end up being free but just low enough to cover (most of) the cost of making it.

Re:Not possible

[JWSmythe]

Well, the whole thing is speculation anyways, so it really doesn't matter.

    Plenty of companies sell or give away loss leaders. *IF* they did it, it could be used to get their product to market. They may give away the free version, with an upgrade path to a better version. They may give away the free version with pay features such as requiring a 2 year 3G contract, or pay to use the Google cloud services. Really, even without the advertising, it would be worth the money if they charged $10/mo for using their storage. The prices mentioned were retail prices. Just because something costs $200 in the store doesn't mean it costs the manufacturer $200. Usually it costs an awful lot less.

    Even the folks saying that they'd install whatever alternative OS on it, that would still be a minority, and they would make their money on the majority of the users.

    I doubt we'll see the Google branded free netbook anytime soon, but hey, it could happen. Or folks will continue to speculate about it. :)

Re:Not possible

[sorton9999]

Let's say the hardware DOES cost $150. I think over the lifetime of the hardware they can more than recoup the cost. I think it's in the realm of possibility to get $10 add revenue per month per user. That includes search revenue and adds splashed all over everything. They get their money back after 15 months. Let's say the average lifetime of the hardware is 2 years, they make money after a while. Of course, they make money sooner as the hardware gets cheaper.

Re:Not possible

[damburger]

Advertising on the netbook itself could not cover it, perhaps, but remember what Google are trying to do here is break on the desktop; if they make a loss getting their netbooks into peoples homes (and their lives) then they are getting more desktop users by default (because if you are keeping your documents on google docs, then you will still use it when you boot a windows machine). They can make the numbers work if they are banking on increasing their userbase elsewhere.

If Google can get a large enough userbase on their cloud applications to break the MS Office monopoly, then suddenly the reason 95% of the worlds desktop computers run Windows evaporates.

I myself don't like cloud computing for office work - I tend to use openoffice. This will still work out well for users like me though; Without an MS monopoly people will become more used to working between different office packages.

Re:Not possible

[Lord Bitman]

Your attention is worth $150 an hour, and you can't even focus it enough to ignore ads you don't care about? Shit, mine must be worth BILLIONS!

Re:Not possible

[Garble Snarky]

If it's THAT cheap, I'll just buy my own. Even if the unsubsidized hardware costs twice that, I'd still rather spend $40 and have the freedom to do what I want with MY hardware.

Re:Not possible

[natehoy]

I think the issue goes deeper than CPM.

If you get someone to use this as their daily computer and load something that can track their every move (not just on the Web, but how much time they spend in a spreadsheet, on Thunderbird, on IM, etc), you can build a really valuable profile on them that goes FAR beyond simple google-analytics tracking or web ad responses.

You can start building predictable behavior models for a significantly large population.

That is data you simply cannot buy today.

Experiments like this have been tried in the past, all to end in failure, but that's because something like this requires REALLY cheap hardware (the costs model being so low that you don't care that half of your freebie customers are hacking the hardware and taking out your stuff or using it as a specific-purpose machine, because the remaining half are using the systems for everything exactly as you intended). The data, if it can be gathered successfully, makes the hardware cost look cheap by comparison.

Armed with this data, Google could start predicting with pretty creepy accuracy what the response rate is going to be to a particular campaign. Then they can start charging a higher CPM for ALL of their advertising, because they can do what no one else in the industry is able to do. Guarantee a specific response rate based on a carefully-crafted campaign, that is crafted based on good models of how people act in real life.

Under the current model, an advertiser approaches Google and says "we want to advertise this new vehicle". Google gets info on the vehicle and charges a CPM for sending hopefully relevant clicks through to the automaker's page.

With the new data model in place and populated, the advertiser approaches Google and says "we want to sell 5,000 automobiles". Google can charge a flat rate per actual sale, which they can predict based on these models. They'll not only be able to predict clickthrough rates, but have a fair shot at actual sales.

And this is not only the people who participated - they would in theory use google-analytics surfing data for the entire websurfing population combined with the models they've build based on the people they track to predict behavior for a much larger population.

So, for example, they come out with a new ad for the "Ford Monopole", a hypothetical electric car. The looks appeal to a subset of their tracked population that are into certain TV shows, search for certain movies on IMDB, and get emails from people who are into similar things. Use the analytics data from those TV shows' web sites to determine fans of the show/movie, and you can target campaigns to those people.

Yes, advertisers do this today, but this could bring it to a whole new level, because they'll know which cars their tracked population actually bought and what factors led up to that decision. Then they can extrapolate that out to the larger population for which they have less complete data.

Creeped out yet?

Re:Not possible

[Ephemeriis]

As nice as it is to think that advertisements will cover everything, a single user isn't worth a $150+ netbook. Actually single user is worth a lot less for Google and other companies.

Who says the netbook will cost $150?

Hardware keeps getting cheaper... And if everything lives in the cloud then you really need virtually no local storage. Just a screen, keyboard, and some kind of Internet connection.

What if the netbook only costs $100? $50?

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook. And the same users would be doing those searches and ad clicks anyway, so it serves no purpose.

What about advertising that's physically on the netbook itself? Like logos and graphics and whatnot?

Companies pay good money to advertise on billboards and in movies and on the sides of busses. You could take the low-tech approach and just slap some logos on the thing... You know Google would have their logo on it somewhere. Someone asks you at work or wherever - where'd you get the netbook? - oh, it's free, check out netbook.google.com Gets Google another user looking at the ads on their free netbook.

And you could slap some FedEx or WalMart or whatever other signage on it. I'm sure companies would happily pay a few dollars to slap a logo on a netbook that you'll be using in public on a more-or-less daily basis.

Or you could take a more high-tech approach and put an epaper display on the back of the screen... Orient it so that other people can read it while you're using the netbook... Google could tie that feed right into their AdSense program. Of course that'd be a bigger ad... Something with some graphics and whatnot... And it'd be visible to more than just the person using the netbook... So Google could charge extra for that ad space.

Another thing is that search result advertisements and even ads on gmail are worth more because they can be really targeted. But what do you advertise on a spreadsheet app? Users aren't looking for any info or such - they're working on their spreadsheet.

Why, you advertise a competing spreadsheet app, of course! Microsoft can advertise their new and improved LiveSpreadsheet... Or their own free netbook program... Someone can roll up a new cloud-based spreadsheet app and advertise it... Or Google can advertise their professional spreadsheet app... More built-in functions, no advertising, priority cloud processing... Maybe you can advertise QuickBooks Cloud Edition or something like that, especially if you serve up ads based on content like Gmail does now.

It's just out of the question that a single user would be worth $150 for Google.

Again, I don't know that Google needs $150 from each user. Maybe you're only worth $75 to Google... But Joe over in accounting is worth $300... So Google still makes enough money to support both of you. And that's assuming that the netbooks actually cost $150 each.

But I think you're being short-sighted. You're only looking at AdSense impressions - not the new possibilities that these netbooks present. Not just new possibilities for advertising either...

The free netbook could easily become a platform to deliver software as a service. Intuit could pay Google a fee to advertise this year's edition of TurboTax... And then pay another fee to host the cloud-based version of TurboTax... And then you could pay Intuit to use this year's version of TurboTax.

Yes, I know, software as a service is evil... You'll never trust your data to the cloud...

But if Joe Sixpack can get a free netbook, and this year's TurboTax Cloud Edition for only $20... Instead of buying a PC and full-priced TurboTax... I think they'll manage to move a lot of free netbooks and a lot of TurboTax Cloud Editions.

Re:Not possible

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Exactly. A small modification of the numbers, may result in it being economically feasible. Difficult to tell without knowing what the exact numbers are. (sorry no mod points, today)

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

Where do you think the savings should be coming from? You still need an LCD screen, video hardware, audio hardware, processor, RAM, etc. And you can't buy a generic netbook case like you can for a desktop PC.

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

There's never going to be a $20 netbook even if your labor costs were zero.

Re:Not possible

[crazycheetah]

ok, I was originally going to respond about I thought I remembered a "GDrive" being speculated. And then I googled it and found this, where someone caught Google mentioning efforts towards GDrive in a presentation. So, say they make the GDrive (there's more to the blog [read it], but let's say it's just rented out space on the cloud) and charge for it.

And Chrome OS I heard some speculation about before it came up as real.

What's to stop them from charging for the GDrives monthly, putting Chrome OS on cheap enough hardware, and just giving out those cheap computers for free, charging for GDrives to make up for it?

Re:Not possible

[ClosedSource]

The fact that OLPC specifically targeted a $100 machine and couldn't achieve it should tell you a lot about the feasibility of a sub $100 computer.

Historically prices on PCs have come down, but the low end computers have started to reach a limit. A sub $100 laptop/netbook is about as practical as it was 5 years ago except that you can put more RAM in it now.

Re:Not possible

[tomhudson]

And if it gets down to that price, the same manufacturer (not google) is going to offer similar netbooks with other operating systems for a few bucks more, and without the advertising. they already have the economies of scale at that point, so why not milk it for a few extra bucks? Sell it with a real linux distro that doesn't have adware for $10 more. Sell it with Windows for $20 more. Sell it with OSX for ... ummm ... maybe not OSX ...

Also, clicks from people running "welfarebooks" aren't going to be worth anything to a pay-per-click advertiser. Terrible demographics, especially since if you're too poor to even buy a netbook, some of you are paying your ISP bill by engaging in one of those "make money at home clicking on links" pay-to-click frauds, so advertisers will aggressively filter out users of any "free" netbook.

Re:Not possible

[IndustrialComplex]

There's never going to be a $20 netbook even if your labor costs were zero.

Just like there will never be $20 cell phones?

Netbook = Display, keyboard/HID, 802.11, Battery, Microcontroller, plastic frame/shell, AC-DC converter.

We have already proven that all of those items except for the display can be included in a $20 product. Do you believe that the Display will always keep the cost above $20? With the advent of mobile browsing, many services now revolve around repackaging websites for viewing on smaller screens and requiring less processor overhead. I could see it happening in 5-10 years easily.

What I'm really waiting for is this:

Color e-Ink displays at a reasonable cost. THAT is going to usher in a huge change to our mobile landscape. It might not be the $20 model you state is impossible, but it's my prediction.

Re:Not possible

[B1oodAnge1]

wat?

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Main_Page

Re:Not possible

[TheRaven64]

On the other hand, if it has ChromeOS installed and I can nuke it and install FreeBSD without violating the conditions of sale, then I'd be happy to pick one up for free, especially if it had an ARM CPU and decent battery life.

Re:Not possible

[Acer500]

Just like there will never be $20 cell phones?

There aren't $20 cell phones, that's the subsidized price. If you were a phone company, or someone in a position to collect a monthly fee for running these netbooks, you certainly could dump them for $20 on a shelf at Wal-Mart, provided they come with a 2 year contract for whatever you're selling...

I'm not so sure... I bought a U$ 20 cell phone recently (the Nokia 1208), new, from the local carrier, without a contract or any fees of any kind and with 300 minutes of credit thrown in. Maybe they hope they'll make it up off prepaid phone cards, but they're not getting them off a contract.

Re:Not possible

[Zerth]

You can buy a Sheevaplug, retail, for $100 right now. It is essentially a netbook, sans screen/keyboard/touchpad/battery.

Wholesale it is approaching $50. Keyboards & touchpads are a couple of dollars wholesale, netbook screens can be had for ~$50, and undersize netbook batteries for the same.

Wait another year or two, when the core will come down to $25 and find a battery/screen combo for under $75, albeit with only a few hours of charge and a 7" screen. It won't run Windows, but it'll be better than the netbook sitting on my desk right now.

Re:Not possible

[Abcd1234]

Creeped out yet?

Not particularly, given this would be an opt-in process. It's no different than people choosing to use club cards at the grocery store... except, in this case, they get a free netbook out of the deal.

Would I do it? Meh, probably not. But for most people, I'd say they'd consider information about their personal browsing habits easily worth a free computer.

And this is all assuming your paranoid fantasy is even true.

Re:Not possible

[kbielefe]

Congratulations on making the first reasonable argument. Google has made way too many statements like "We are not interested in locking or preventing users from installing other operating systems, on their hardware if they so please." (toward the end) to make me believe an advertising model to offset free netbooks is viable. However, factor in a two-year contract for internet service, and it makes perfect sense. Google provides a simple, secure, easy to support, easy to upgrade OS, gaining some ad revenue, but doesn't lose much if the end user wipes the OS. The ISP assumes the financial risk with the contract, and gets the monthly payments in return, and can provide a usable netbook for cheaper thanks to the low hardware requirements of Google's OS, maybe even kicking part of the contract revenue back to Google in exchange for support. That sounds like the Google way.

Re:Not possible

[trenton]

Just like there will never be a $20 calculator, $20 digital watch, $20 hand-held laser, or $20 digital camera.

Re:Not possible

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Yes, advertisers do this today, but this could bring it to a whole new level, because they'll know which cars their tracked population actually bought and what factors led up to that decision. Then they can extrapolate that out to the larger population for which they have less complete data.

Creeped out yet?

If the advertisers know what factors lead up to my decision, then they wouldn't show me ads unless I was in the market for that or something similar. I can understand the creepiness of that kind of mind reading, but if for example the ad host in question did a deal with you where you said what you were in the market for whenever you wanted something, and they turned off the ads when you were NOT going to buy anything, or at least reduced them to things that fall into your impulse buy range, then I can't see this being a bad thing.

And really, once you get to the point you're talking about, it makes plenty of sense for you to actually have an account with the ad host so that you can have some explicit input anyway.

(Cue a thousand cynical slashdotters telling me how business interests are never going to do anything halfway worthwhile for the consumer like that, even when it IS practical)

Re:Not possible

[BobMcD]

Nothing

is unable to be hacked.

Re:Not possible

[mrboyd]

I can imagine the only ad I'd feel compulsed to click if I had to work in google docs on a chrome netbook.

Looking for a faster word processor?
Microsoft Office 2010.
50% off with a real pc.

Re:Not possible

[simplu]

Never? Bill, is it you?

Re:Not possible

[indi0144]

>> Creeped out yet?

Nope, but thats because my background education is in advertising. You sir, have outlined the wet dream of many advertising companies.

And yes, I'd use a subsidized Google netbook even if I have a real laptop, it's an appliance not a real PC. The same as I'd use a subsidized coffeemaker if it's provided by mi favorite coffee brand under the condition to use it with said brand of coffee only, because I'm going to be buying that coffee anyway.

Also, the coffee brand don't know about my coffee bush in my patio (I have one, really) and Google do not care if I install $random_linux_distro

Re:Not possible

[xonicx]

May be google netbooks are small servers running on user's electricity and Internet bandwidth to serve other users.

A free _netbook_?

[E-Sabbath]

Considering the uses I'd have for a netbook, yes. It wouldn't replace my main computer. It'd be a walking about sort of tool. If it had a cell modem in it, so much the better.

Yeah, I'd allow it for a netbook. Advertise all you want.

Re:A free _netbook_?

[Ephemeriis]

1) We have a junk disposal problem with computers anyway; clogging it further with cheap machines isn't an answer.

The reason we have a junk disposal problem is because the average consumer doesn't care about it. And since the average consumer doesn't care about it, it won't be an issue in rolling out more cheap machines.

2) The decent machines cost money. Face it: quality costs, and subsidies by carriers/telcos/etc are false economy

I agree that you generally get what you pay for. I understand that subsidies by carriers aren't actually making anything cheaper. But it does make things more accessible. If Verizon will give me a phone for "free" when I sign a two-year contract, that's all most people will see. And as far as actually getting a decent machine? Look around you. Disposability reigns supreme.

3) You certainly jest when you reply, 'Maybe. Maybe not.' Who do you think you're kidding? Tethered broadband costs lots of $$ in the US, and the carriers are having trouble dishing up what they have (no fights regarding Verizon vs AT&T, etc.). Subsidized cell phones are the same scam.

I do not jest, nor am I trying to kid anyone. I don't know what kind of leverage Google may have... I have no idea what kind of income they could make off a netbook... I don't know what kind of network infrastructure they might have... It might be cost-prohibitive to provide cellular data on a free netbook, it might not be.

4) Netbooks fill a need, and I see that need. It also means that the cloud/SaaS apps that are required to be used to do something real are probably going to be tethered to a provider. ChromeOS means you better love Google.... or it will be difficult (probably not impossible) to move to someone else's meager offerings. Google's service levels aren't guaranteed, and if they're offline for whatever reason, go fish.

Unless Google's free netbooks become more of a platform than a service themselves. I'm sure software companies would be happy to pay a fee to Google to make their new SaaS offerings available on Google's netbooks. And keep in mind that Google does have paid versions of their services.

5) The average consumer REELS at having to dump their $500 machine every three years. They would (and so would I) prefer to invest every five or even more years in new hardware. But the stuff breaks, and is subject to the madness of Moore's Law, keeping up with the joneses, and so on. Six months? Ye Gawds, Man.

Not because of the price... Or some emotional attachment to the hardware... Because of the data. It's a pain in the ass to move all your pictures and documents over to a new machine... Re-install all your software... But if everything lives on the cloud? What if you just put your username & password into any netbook and it suddenly becomes just like your home computer? All your data, all your programs... Because everything lives on the cloud.

6) A good tool is a good tool. In my cabinet are lots of tools that are older than I am, and I'm a half-century-plus. These tools stand the test of time because they're quality devices. The concept of a disposable machine is as abhorent as disposable razors. If they can't built it well enough to withstand average use over a decent lifecycle, then they shouldn't build it at all. Look at the fate of General Motors for questions.

In case you hadn't noticed, disposable razors are pretty popular.

And I think this gets to the crux of our disagreement. You have a problem against disposable razors. You think something should be built to last and continue to be used for years. That's fine. That's a choice you can make. But that's not a value that everyone else holds. Like it or not, many people out there are just fine with their disposable razors. They're perfectly happy to buy cheap bits of plastic and throw them away, day

Much like the I-opener

[asicsolutions]

Someone will figure out how to hack it and use it for whatever you want.

Sign me up

No I won't

[godrik]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network. I don't like to rely on an internet connection because some times it breaks. I want to be able to store files on my computer and use it on the plane. And I want to be able to do it off-line. I want all my tools locally, I need LaTeX to work, I need a compiler, I need scientific visualization tools.

I believe in free-as-in-speech software and I don't see how GoogleOS really fits into it.

Re:No I won't

[Hatta]

This is what X forwarding is for. You don't need to process a GB of remote data on your local machine. Have the remote machine process the data and only display the graph over the network. Same with LaTeX, run xpdf remotely and it only has to transfer what you're actually looking at over the network.

Re:No I won't

[Ephemeriis]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network. I don't like to rely on an internet connection because some times it breaks. I want to be able to store files on my computer and use it on the plane. And I want to be able to do it off-line. I want all my tools locally, I need LaTeX to work, I need a compiler, I need scientific visualization tools.

I believe in free-as-in-speech software and I don't see how GoogleOS really fits into it.

I do believe you've completely missed the point.

If the device is little more than a portable web browser, what would you do with it offline?

Netbooks are not intended to run LaTeX or compilers or scientific visualization... They're intended to surf the web, log on to Facebook, and check your email.

Fine, you need LaTeX and compilers and scientific visualization to work... But you're on vacation, on a road trip somewhere. You've stopped at a rest stop somewhere that offers free WiFi and you're wondering if that book you ordered has shipped yet. Do you really need offline storage, gigs of RAM, and a quad-core CPU to check your email? Are you going to compile up a new email client there in the parking lot? Do you routinely craft your email messages in LaTeX?

Re:No I won't

[blowdart]

cloud applications can be cashed

That's certainly what google is hoping for.

Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[John Hasler]

Sure, as long as it wasn't too difficult to wipe it and install Debian.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Hatta]

I installed Sid on a USB stick just last week.

Re:Would you accept a free Google netbook?

[Idiomatick]

And what gives you the impression that the motherboard would let you pick a boot device?

Pay

[truthsearch]

I would pay to not see the ads. I would also pay to retain control over the device (assuming the give-away would be a type of lease).

But the privacy arguments are an issue whether or not you buy the device. If your apps are on the web, they're on someone's servers, whether you paid for the client or not.

Re:Pay

[karcirate]

If you are willing to pay, why not just buy your own netbook?

Duhhh

[Idiomatick]

I'd take several dozen, probably hundreds... hardware can't be given away. I think.... I'd wallpaper my house with monitors. I'm sure I could make a nice server/web ap to run all the buggers even if I couldn't take the hardware apart.

Basically, the idea is impossible and stupid.

Meanwhile: Apple Smiles ...

[foobsr]

... having a patent on forced advertising.

Myself, I would not want such crap.

CC.

Not for daily use, but maybe while traveling

[davidwr]

I can see hotels, conference centers, and the like providing computers "brought to you by Google" or for that matter any advertising partner.

Of course, to be a winner with businesses they would have to allow VPNs to work and would have to guarentee there were no keyloggers or other security issues with the device. That should be easy enough to promise if the device boots over the network from an authenticated and trusted source and the machine were epoxy-sealed to prevent tampering.

So...

[Zapotek]

I'm guessing AdBlock and/or NoScript are out of the question, huh?

The short answer is...

[Dartz-IRL]

No..

Aside from Gmail, (which I access with Thunderbird) I try not to use too many google services. . I'm also mindful of that recent Apple patent about ad's which can physically block the machine, forcing the user to interact with them.

There's also a personal freedom/privacy issue.

I use Linux because it's 'mine' as such. I can pretty do what I want with it (compared to traditional software licenses anyway). I'm not quite sure how to word this in a rational .... but something about Google providing me a free laptop, in exchange for being allowed to target-advertise me.... it's deeply unsettling. I don't like being followed.

Of course, I'm just a tinfoil hat moron, but well.... my computer is my castle, thick stone walls around my data safeguarding my privacy against casual observers.
I don't want transparent walls of glass showing my world to someone else.... even it it was free.

It feels very Big brother-ish.

No Thanks

[OrangeMonkey11]

My privacy comes with a higher price tag then just some POS hardware.

I rather have my own hardware and software that does not call home every second I'm on it and throwing ads in my face constantly.

Remember the 90's

[Ceiynt]

When companies would hand out free computers to anyone who asked, but they were so ad laden they were unusable? Or stopped whatever it was you were doing to play some sort of video for 30 seconds? Nothing is free.

No thanks.

[Old97]

I've already removed Google software from my Mac & PC. No, I don't want to tether to the Google cloud or any cloud and give up my privacy or freedom. At what point will companies like Google be compelled to enforce government mandates and restrictions? (Think China today. The U.S. will start with DMCA and Europe will restrict whatever they think is "offensive" to others.)

Re:No thanks.

[Old97]

What does Palin have to do with anything? I chose when, where and how I post on the Internet. I own my computer and I own my software that runs on it. I exercise control over what programs I run or don't run and the data I store on my computer. I control access to my data. Just because you use the internet does not necessarily mean you've given up all your privacy or control of your hardware - unless you don't have a clue.

China already has dictated to Yahoo, Google and Microsoft - what sites their people see and what data about their people they must surrender to the government. If China can do that, so can the EU, the U.S., India or any other government in a major market.

When you have direct physical access to a computer, there is no security that can stop you. When your computer is in a cloud, the owner of the cloud has direct physical access to your computer. You have to rely on the cloud provider to protect your interests and yet in this case, you aren't even the customer. Advertisers are Google's customers, not you. Google requires the cooperation from governments in order to deliver services to you. Google is not there for you. It's services to you are merely a way of getting your attention and information so they can more effectively (as defined by advertisers) serve ads to you and information to advertisers.

I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[JakeD409]

I wouldn't use a free netbook from Google because I'm a developer. I also play games, use Photoshop, and other things that are out of the scope of web apps. However, the primary audience of Chrome OS (people who just need to do word processing, spreadsheets, email, check the internet, etc.) would probably love it. They're already used to their computer being full of ads from the spyware they don't know how to avoid, so a free computer with (theoretically) nicer ads is probably infinitely preferable to a $300+ computer that still has ads for them.

Re:I wouldn't, but not for privacy concerns

[MozeeToby]

Chromium isn't about a target user, it's about a target use. I'm also the developer, gamer, video editor type; that doesn't mean a netbook wouldn't come in handy for other things. My wife and I fight over the laptop all the time but I refuse to spend the money on a second one, a free netbook (even if all it could do was browse the web) would be very welcome.

That being said, it'll never happen. As someone up above pointed out, a single user isn't worth hundreds of dollars to Google, and it would only be a matter of time before someone figures out how to load custom software and hardware onto the thing. The article should be tagged with 'baseless speculation', that's all it is.

Interesting Historical Perspective

[Like2Byte]

The good gents at IBM didn't see the value in the "Operating System" Microsoft was selling them.

The good gents at Microsoft didn't see the value in monitoring what their users' daily activity on their respective OS was.

I wonder what the good gents at Google are ignoring today that will be a gold mine tomorrow.

---

On another note: I'm very surprised that people are all that interested in what is, essentially, a SpyOS. Forget tracking cookies - this OS is going to be tracking people's behavior 24 hours a day.

Not to provide any ideas into advanced Spywware under the guise of "free useful PC" but imagine if there is a GPS in the netbook that is able to track the users' movements. Traffic patterns, of the individual, could be analyzed and combined with other users and applicable advertising will show up for 'popular' products both in on-line advertising and roadside billboards.

I don't want to get too far off topic so I'll ask this question: When did we turn the corner of being Anti-Spyware to being Pro-Spyware?

Count me in

[KingSkippus]

I won't use a machine which is useless without network.

I just about can't use a machine without using a network. My favorite game is an MMORPG, which is useless without a network. Even other games, I usually have a browser window open for reference. My e-mail is accessed via a web client. (Even with a local client, all you could do is compose or read, not send or receive.) I do web development, which is on a remote web host. When I'm developing things locally in Visual Studio, I'm constantly using online references and documentation. I suppose I could in theory write a letter or something, but to be honest, I don't write letters to people any more. I even require the Internet to do something as simple as watch television these days. (Broadcast tv? Forget it, I use Hulu.)

If you don't use the Internet as much as I do, more power to you. But I really think that going forward, offline computer use is going to be the exception, not the rule. I think saying what you said will eventually sound like, "I won't use a telephone that is useless without a wireless connectivity." Like the cell network, the Internet is so pervasive today that it's weird to run across an application that doesn't use it in some capacity.

Oh, and by the way, Chromium is released under the BSD license, which is free-as-in-speech. I don't know what the license terms will be if such a hypothetical netbook were released, but at least the OS running on it would be open source. From a freedom-as-in-Stallman viewpoint, it may not be perfect, but it is orders of magnitude better than what is currently running on most netbooks out there. Evil is not the opposite of perfect.

ideal for my 2 year old

[alen]

i have already started teaching my son who is 2 and a few months about computers. found a few free games like Thomas the Train that he likes. and for reading i'll open up Google and type in Dora in the search box and spell it out for him letter by letter. he already knows most of the letters of the alphabet, can count to 12 with help, knows a bunch of basic shapes and colors. time to teach him to read since most of the good NYC schools expect a child to read and write by 1st grade. at least that's what i'm told by parents with kids that old. the good schools in the NYC suburbs are the same way.

a free or ultra low cost Google netbook is perfect for this. my son likes to bang on the keyboard so if it breaks i just go get another one. nothing to break software-wise.

a few months of playing with one of these junky useless Chrome OS gizmos and he will be ready for a real computer. i'm thinking a Mac just because he can learn some UNIX on it and it's usable unlike most of the linux distro's i've tried. I do think Ubuntu sucks as a home PC

i've played with the Chrome OS vmware image floating around the internet and i don't think it has any value at all for a normal person or any kind of computer user i've ever met

I think it's a great idea.

[tmosley]

I don't think they would be able to give them away for free, though. As someone else mentioned, people would take advantage of that, and wallpaper their rooms with monitors and such. What I would do is charge the person who wanted one COST or something less than cost, and let your profits come from the advertising as mentioned. If the cost to make one of these things is ten or twenty dollars, as speculated in the article, it would probably work quite well. I'd pay ten or twenty bucks for a Google netbook. Hell, if it provided free internet access, I'd pay a few hundred, a la Kindle. I think most people in the developed world would do the same. That is, assuming it remained open and unhobbled.

You forget who you're talking to

[Tarlus]

Give us a free netbook at the cost of seeing ads? You're forgetting one thing: Chrome OS is Linux at its heart, and we're a bunch of Linux geeks. We'd have those ads hacked out of it faster than you could say "/etc/hosts.deny".

AdBlock

[Enderandrew]

I can't imagine that Google likes AdBlock, but they've made no effort to stop people from developing AdBlock solutions for the Chrome browser. Likewise, Google is the primary source of revenue for Mozilla, and Mozilla says Google has never suggested they try to block AdBlock.

Attempted before

[flogger]

This was attempted before with Free-Pc.com (Now it is just a parked domain). This was back in 1999. 10000 free Compaq computers were given away. In return people gave up personal information/demographics/hobbies/etc in return for a PC that had advertising on the screen 24/7. Source.

The attempt was a bust if I recall right.

But this is 10 years later; we have come a long way in targeted advertising. If anyone can do this, it is Google.

$150?

[OrangeTide]

What makes you think it would cost them $150 to make a netbook? If they have minimal needs in terms of memory and processing power it could be manufactured much more cheaply than that. I did some napkin math on a few things from a BOM on another product and discounted it heavily for very large volumes and ended up with $55.

You obviously never worked in the search industry.

[tomhudson]

Advertisers don't want clicks from users of what would be "welfarebooks".

If they can't even afford $200 for a netbook, their demographics are horrendous. Advertisers base their CPM on such things as location, time of day, day of the week, referrer, OS (if I'm advertising pc software, I don't want mac user clicks, and vice versa), etc. Clicks from users of "free" computers won't generate revenue because advertisers will avoid them like the plague.

These are the type of people who are the most likely to be engaged in click fraud, such as pay-to-click "make money at home surfing the web" scams. After all, if they can't afford a computer, they've got to pay for their net access somehow, and it's easier to do click fraud than to scrounge around the 'hood for returnable pop bottles.

Plus infinite demand kills this

[Crazy Taco]

Lets say Google gets around $2 CPM on normal searches. That means a single search is worth something like $0.002 for Google. It's going to take lots of searches and ad clicks from every user to even cover the costs of the netbook.

Exactly. And because of infinite demand, you'll really need a lot of clicks, but you probably won't get many. Here's why. Let's say you make something free. Say a McDonald's hamburger. Suddenly you are going to have everyone running out to get the hamburger, even though they weren't planning to get one today, just because it is free. Now consider a netbook. I really don't want one, but heck, if it's free I'll take one! Everyone would take one, whether they really wanted one before or not, because it's a free portable computer. Now most of those people will later put that netbook on a shelf to gather dust as soon as the novelty wears off, because they really didn't have a deep need/desire for the netbook in the first place. They've probably got a desktop or laptop that has more computing power, more privacy, and runs a greater variety of apps, so they won't really need the netbook. The problem for google is that each of those netbooks still cost them 150, and now they don't even have people using them and clicking on ads.

So this will be a guaranteed fiasco for Google should they choose to go through with this. They will have to make about 305 million of the netbooks because everyone in the US will want one (ok, maybe 250 million because there will be some 1 year olds and grandmas that don't, but anyone who knows how to use a computer will probably take one). Multiply those millions of units by 150 dollars, and that's how much advertising dollars google will need to have just to break even. And that's oversimplifying things, because since the apps live in the cloud, you have to have the server infrastructure, bandwidth costs, engineering, support techs, software developers, etc. Their costs will be much greater than the costs for the Windows OS, because at least with a Windows OS you don't have to provide a server, bandwidth, PC, etc, because it's off running on a user PC somewhere. I think you start to see how there is no way this will possibly happen... no way can they get the ad revenue to cover this. Plus it's naive to assume that they will even get that many users (something they would have to have, since that's the only way they could truly corner the ad market and charge the premium prices they'd need to pay for this), since most people will probably stick with Linux, Mac, or Windows.

Netbooks are free with 3g

[Colin Smith]

3G connection, 3g enabled netbook. 20/month.

25 and Google apps are thrown in.

Without the netbook, just a sim? 20/month.

 

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[slim]

Advertisers don't want clicks from users of what would be "welfarebooks".

Since you imply you've worked for the search industry, I'll take your word for it. But I'm surprised.

The poor are a lucrative market for certain products, and many successful businesses made their fortunes by taking small amounts of money from large numbers of poor people. Simple and not-unethical example: discount supermarkets.

Yeah, pushing Lexus adverts at them isn't going to work out. Pushing cornflakes ads at them might.

Re:You obviously never worked in the search indust

[tomhudson]

The problem is that too many of them participate in "pay-to-click". You may have seen that sort of thing - "make money surfing the web". Clickstreams from people in that general demographic, and a few others with smilar economic profiles, can't be monetized - they aren't worth even $0.001 (a tenth of a cent).

Sure, they'd be suckers for credit cards at 35% interest, with a front-loaded fee on the first month of $75, etc. Problem is, they wouldn't even qualify for that ... and those that would, too many would default, so the advertiser would just find it to be a huge money pit.

Then you have the possibility of mixing those into the general click pool - which only goes to lower the overall quality of your click stream to the advertiser, who then reasonably drops the price they're willing to pay - or if it now becomes marginal, drops that whole stream, because it's too contaminated with crap.

Clicks in and of themselves have no value. It's only because you can safely predict that in a particular batch of clicks, from a particular set of sources, for a particular product, a certain percentage will convert to actions that ultimately generate the desired response - usually involving the exchange of money at some point. There's a floor to how low you can go for any demographic before it becomes unprofitable, and halo effects (such as "increasing brand recognition") have to be discounted. This can all be calculated in real time, then automatically applied to "protect" other ad campaigns against similar conversion-poor sources.

At under a tenth of a cent per click, the associated costs just aren't worth it - better to devote the same resources to handling a market that *has* money. After all, to generate $10 of revenue, with a click-thru ratio of 2%, shared 50/50 with the web site desplaying the ad, at $0.001 per click, you'd need a million impressions. There's bottom-feeding, then there's *bottom-feeding*. A million page views to make $10? "Well, just show more ads per page!" Too many ads lowers your click-thru rate, so at a certain point, you're going backwards - and your page becomes a wall of ads and almost no content, so you end up losing traffic.

This is just a replay of the old "get a free pc" gimmicks from years gone by, where you had to browse the web with a browser that constantly streamed ads. It didn't work, and this won't either. It's also extremely vulnerable to the peer-to-pear web (the real "cloud computing" model) that will render centralized search engines obsolete by the end of the next decade, but that's another story.