AOL Hooks 'Em While They're Young
from the AOL-in-schools dept
AOL is announcing a new plan to offer internet access to schools free of charge. They claim that this isn’t for any business purpose, but to be helpful. There will be some ads, but only in areas that teachers and administrators can access. While they say there’s no business reason for doing it, you have to think this is a “hook ’em while they’re young” strategy. Kids who get used to AOL at school will probably try to bring it home as well.
Comments on “AOL Hooks 'Em While They're Young”
Used to do this
I used to give away crack cocaine in school. There was no business motivation for doing it, I’m just a nice guy.
(Oh man, I’m going to regret this post later!)
didn't Apple try this?
Isn’t this something Apple has tried without much success? I know there are die-hard Apple/Mac fans out there, but I doubt it was because there elementary school had classes using Apple IIe’s.
Re: didn't Apple try this?
Actually… I do know folks who are Apple fans simply because that’s what they learned on in school. I can also point out applications that I use because I was forced into them in college. I didn’t say it was a foolproof strategy however. Apple lost a lot of users because of a ton of strategic mistakes they made that practically forced people to migrate over to Wintel. If they hadn’t been so pathetic, they probably would have kept a lot more of their users who had been hooked early.