Here comes ZapMe the computer version of Channel One
Screen shots of ZapMe's commercial interface.

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Our readers should be aware of a new trend in commercialism that may soon be reaching your school: advertising using new technologies. The most disturbing new scheme (and the first to go mass market) is ZapMe, the computer version of Channel One.

ZapMe is an internet web browser that gives kids access to over 8,000 educational websites. The company offers 15 “free” computers to a school as long as the school has children logged on to each computer for a minimum of 4 hours a day. The entire time the students use ZapMe, advertising aimed at the teen market plays in the lower left hand corner of the screen. Sound familiar yet?

It gets worse. If the stu-dents click on any particular advertisement, they are transported directly to the advertising company’s web site. ZapMe intends to have attractive advertising (imagine a Nike ad that shows a video of Mark McGwire hitting a home run) designed to lure a kid into commercial webpages where even more interactive activities await them (games, contests, videos, etc.)

In addition to the advertising, there is also an invasion of privacy issue. ZapMe has a “points program” where each student earns points for the amount of time they spend using the computer. ZapMe keeps track and sends kids prizes directly to their homes after they earn a certain amount of points. In order to do this, ZapMe routinely collects the home information of every new student who logs on.

ZapMe offers the ultimate set up for companies looking to advertise to children during classtime. Like Channel One, they can deliver a captive audience of students that will be contractually required to use the product a certain number of hours per week. Also, because the entire network is connected via satellite, they can actually monitor which kids in which zip codes are looking at particular ads, and report this back to the companies.

Perhaps in order to head off criticism, the Center was offered a tour of a school in Livermore, CA that uses Zap Me. Last December Senior program Director Andrew Hagelshaw and Associate Director Merede Graham toured a computer lab where there was a class in session; making himself available for our questions was Frank Vigil, President and CEO of ZapMe.

The school situation they were shown was the most optimal situation for the ZapMe product. There were two teachers present, one of whom led the students in a directed research exercise that lasted the entire class. Since the teachers were looking over the students shoulders the entire time, very few kids clicked on the advertising. This illustrates one of the contradictions of ZapMe; a school that doesn’t have the resources to buy it’s own computers also won’t have the resources to constantly supervise the children to make sure they aren’t spending their entire time looking at the ads.

Another fact that ZapMe fails to tell educators: the disk drive of all the computers is physically sealed shut and can’t be used for anything else besides ZapMe. The computers are always on line and connected to the ZapMe system through the satellite, which is installed on the roof of the school.

ZapMe may already be assured of initial success. They claim to have schools clamoring for their service. According to their CEO, they have accumulated over 8,000 requests already, and they plan to be exposed to over 10 million kids by the year 2002. Schools who don’t understand all of the drawbacks and limitations may find the line of “free computers” hard to resist, just as many schools signed up for Channel One in the early 90s before they fully understood the situation. At the Center, we will be work-ing hard to make the public more aware of ZapMe. We plan to make it every bit as controversial as Channel One in the coming months!

If you find out that ZapMe may be coming to your school, and you want to do something about it, call us at 1-800- 867-5841!

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