Google Android penetrates 11 US schools
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Giant online advertising company Google has generously donated cellphones to 11 American colleges and universities for use in introductory computer-science courses this fall.
Well gosh darn, Gargle, that’s so, well, um, ah …
Ball State University, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Indiana University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mills College, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Michigan, the University of San Francisco, and Wellesley College, will now become Gargoyle advertising and R&D divisions with students doing the work at virtually no cost to the company.
It’s, “hoping that students will build some interesting applications for the company’s cellphone software,” says Wired Campus, going on:
“Each college has received 20 HTC phones loaded with Google’s Android operating system, which the company says allows students with no programming experience to create applications for sites like Facebook and Twitter.”
Wellesley College computer-science professor P. Takis Metaxas will, “teach a class using the phones starting next week, said a student who doesn’t know how to program can learn how to make applications on the Android software. Most of the students signed up for his class are freshmen, he said.”
Who’ll be paying for the classroom rentals and staff fees at the 11 schools? – one wonders.
A spokeswoman for Google called the collaboration with the colleges an “experiment” and said it could be expanded to other schools in the future if it proves successful, says the story.
No kidding.
Wired Campus – Google Hands Out Cellphones, Hoping Students Will Build Better Apps, September 2, 2009
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September 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I dont feel this is a marketing gimmick. The secondary school I attended received some kind of donation or deal from Dell (one could argue that was marketing gimmick) but it helped the students in more ways then I can explain in this little comment. Projectors for every 6 classrooms, scanners, computers in every classroom. Thats just one example. Another would be things like lego mindstorms robots they weren’t donated per say however they were part of a computer science course at the same school.
I would like to assume this was really something to benefit education. One would think if it wasn’t a gimmick they would have at least donated to a less fortunate school than Harvard University but I’ll admit to not looking into what the other schools qualities qualities. Meh.
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
those schools were chosen because wealthy kids attend those schools. everyone knows poor kids cant operate cellphones let alone know how to program computers. :0)
im gonna go with marketing scam with this one. why else drop the names of fa$ebook and mytwat in the announcement of the class.
seems like the powers that be that control are thoughts,food,money,and basic freedoms, want as many americans as possible to be enslaved to these social networking sites. they are nothing but mind numbing,dumbing down,advertising schemes that harvest personal data of the user over time.
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
What a gimmic.
*shakes head*
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Why are people saying “marketing gimmick”? The students are getting free phones and a good opportunity to make their mark in the rising application market. Sure… this helps google. But it also helps the university and students. It’s basically like google giving them a grant.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
The target age to sell these things to are the age of these students.
This is a marketing and selling campaign in a guise.
After the exposure to this, and having students do this crap as a “course”, do you think word will spread in the uni/college with the thousands of other ripe-4-the-picking students? Do you think this will influence their buying power? Do you think this will influence weather they buy an iphone or google phone?
This is utter bs in the guise of education.
May as well contact Coke and have them sponsor their marketing courses with the main focus on Coke while they sell both coke and pepi in the school Caf.
This topic should be filed in “Kids & Kartels”. Not under advertising.
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 pm
@ matzahboy
“It’s basically like google giving them a grant.”
Google never ‘gives’ anything.
But it’s an idea with promise. Google should give each school a decent a grant, rather more than the equivalent cost of the phones. The schools can then buy any kind of unit they want from any maker, do the research, and then make the results freely and openly available.
Cheers!
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Yeah it’s a gimmick. But remember – android is a free and open source OS. Students could mess around with these and learn a lot about how smartphones work. Besides, what isn’t a gimmick these days? Coke machines in the student lounge. College book stores overcharging for required texts. Id rather see it all stop and keep corporations out of education, but honestly, at least some good can come out of this. Maybe this will slow the spread of iphones, which are more of a threat to online freedom (locked in to one provider, outrageous app store censorship, closed source development, ect).