DIGITAL L.A. : MAIL FOR NOTHING, PCS FOR FREE; USERS WOOED WITH NO-COST DEALS ON NET.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

In Economics 51, the professor always said there's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone, somewhere was paying, even for the ``free'' stuff. All you had to do was figure out what people were paying how much and where.

Well, the Internet is busily trying to blow up this basic tenet of economics, as it is with so many others.

For at least a while, then, you can enjoy a digital dinner for pretty much nothing, with free e-mail, free calendars, free data backup, free Web space and even free computers at no cost. Everywhere you go these days on the Internet, it seems, sites are offering a bewildering array of stuff at no charge.

But even free comes with a cost. In this case, you pay with your attention, which some Information Age theorists say will be the most valuable thing we each own in a media-saturated future.

These companies are paying their way (or hope to, anyway) by selling advertising. You keep going there to get your e-mail, or check your calendar, and they get a guaranteed base of return visitors to whom they can show ads. The more valuable the giveaway, the more they ask of the user.

For things like FreePC.com, the Pasadena company that made such a splash last month with its plan to give away 10,000 (and perhaps ultimately 1 million) computers, the requirements can be extensive.

Not only do you have to submit significant demographic details about your life and buying habits, you have to agree to use the included Internet service at least 10 hours a month. That guarantees you'll be staring at oodles of perfectly targeted ads flashing in a wrap-around border on your free computer screen.

But lots of people seem willing to pay the price. FreePC was swamped by 1.2 million applicants for its first round of offers.

And other folks are using some of the lesser services in numbers that are only possible on the Net, or at a Peking convention.

Hotmail, for instance, is the granddaddy of the free e-mail services and now is part of Microsoft while busily fighting off dozens of competitors. But Hotmail still has 35 million users, roughly double the size of America Online.

Lots of the smaller sites are offering free services too, often with help from behind-the-scenes companies such as PeopleLink in Santa Monica.

The company's president, Scott Glenn, said people are drawn to specific sites not for things like e-commerce, but ``for the people. The content creates the context for a communications experience.''

PeopleLink provides the free e-mail, interest groups, chat rooms and instant messaging services used by many major Web sites such as AltaVista, Earthlink and Go.com, as well as dozens of small-timers. The company's own Web site also provides direct access to many of the services, though without the customization common on specialized sites.

The companies are willing to partner with PeopleLink for the services because those give people a reason to visit - and to stay long enough to show them lots of ads.

There are some advantages to these services.

For instance, you'll be able to access your e-mail from anywhere in the world, as long as you can get online somehow, from anyone's computer.

This is particularly useful for people who travel a lot; who have company-supplied Internet access but want a personal address; and for people who are tired of endless spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail) and want a ``front'' e-mail address they can walk away from should the advertising get too thick.

They're handy as spam screens, too. If your home e-mail address is starting to get a few too many unwelcome, unsolicitied junk e-letters, using a free-mail virtual address to do such things as register with sites online is a way to cut the gelatinized meat byproducts.

But if you don't have Internet access through such common outlets as a library, workplace or family member's home, most of the free-mail services aren't much use.

In that case, you might want to make a deal with NetZero Inc. in Westlake Village. Again in exchange for your demographic information, you get Internet access to go with the e-mail address, saving you $20 or more a month in subscription fees.

You also get lots of ads, precisely targeted to you, in a movable 1-by-3-inch window that can even show video clips tied in some cases to the specific Web sites you visit.

The excessively mobile also will benefit from such services as always-available online calendars and address books, handy if you're often jumping between computers in more than one place and can't afford a laptop.

Other companies will let you backup the contents of your hard drive on their big storage devices.

That provides a great deal of protection in case you live in a tinder box. But the downside is someone else theoretically could read all your files. And backing up over the Net can be excruciatingly slow unless you have a very fast connection.

InfoWorld columnist and editor Dylan Tweney warned that the FreePC gambit and others like it will usher in ``an era of free stuff and ceaseless advertising.''

He posits a world where that model - first embraced in radio and television and now reaching its heights in the Internet - would lead to urban buses outfitted with TVs, plying city streets for free while flashing ads at riders.

And given the ads already plastered on milk cartons, can it be far away before we see food given away as advertising platform?

So even free comes with a price, just as the professor said. And it didn't even take a ``calculus guy'' to figure it out. That said, if you can abide by a little relentless commercialism in your online meal, soup's on.

If you want it, Web site may give it to you

Free e-mail. Free Web space. Free love. Well, two out of three ain't bad, even for the Internet. Here's a brief list of some of the free services offered online:

E-mail and Web space

Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) has about 35 million subscribers, making it the world's most omnipresent letter slot. You may prefer something a little more exclusive, so you can have exactly the e-mail handle you want, but Hotmail lets you check up to five accounts at once, though none can be your primary business account.

Mail.com Inc. (www.mail.com) provides free e-mail services not only directly but also through deals with big sites such as CNN Interactive and the AltaVista search engine.

LA.com (www.la.com) is a Los Angeles site that offers free local e-mail services to go with its news, entertainment, wedding and other items. And best of all, you can wear your Angelo-ness on your virtual sleeve.

Fortune City (www.fortunecity.com) offers both an e-mail address and a whopping 20 megabytes of Web space, making it one of the more generous free sites out there.

Fortune City also just cut a deal with Warner Bros. to create ACMEcity (www.acmecity.com), which allows users to create Web sites that use tons of free art and photos from such Warner Bros. franchises as Bugs Bunny and Batman.

Geocities (www.geocities.com) has been a leader in providing not only free e-mail and 11 megabytes of Web space, but grouping the Web sites into 41 ``GeoAvenues,'' or areas of relatively like-minded folks. And if you want more space, or to create a commercial site, they'll provide that for modest prices. Yahoo! just bought Geocities, so expect some interesting fallout as the two operations merge more closely.

NetZero Inc. (www.netzero.net) goes a step further than all these services, offering complete Internet access that includes e-mail and other services in exchange for your demographic information and the requirement to always have a 1-by-3-inch ad window playing on your screen.

Free instant messaging and discussion areas

ICQ (www.icq.com) has free instant-messaging capabilities throughout the Net, just as America Online users can do within the AOL universe. If a friend is online at the same time as you, ICQ will let you ``chat'' (well, type) directly with them.

Talk City (www.talkcity.com/) focuses on Net ``communities,'' with a wide array of subjects you can pick through, such as knitting or sailing or whatever else appeals most to you. You can also create a free home page, or check out their events calendar.

PeopleLink (www.peoplelink.net) has message boards, discussion areas connected to specific topics, chat rooms and instant messaging, both on its own site and for a burgeoning number of big clients.

Free calendars and appointment books

Most of the portal sites - such as Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) and Excite (www.excite.com) have numerous services to go with the customized home pages they offer to their users, including calendar reminders and more.

For more extensive programs, though, Jump Networks' Jump site offers free calendar, address book and e-mail services that link up with your computer's programs, such as Microsoft's Schedule and Outlook Express and Lotus' Organizer and Notes. You can also access event listings, to-do lists and message boards, and even share calendars with others.

Free computers

Free PC (www.free-pc.com) made a big splash last month when it proposed giving 10,000 (and perhaps up to 1 million) pretty good PCs to people willing to reveal specific demographic information and put up with a screen surrounded by flashing ads while using the included Internet service at least 10 hours a month. Of course, you have to be their kind of people, demographically speaking. Nonetheless, 1.2 million people signed up for the first round.

- David Bloom

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, 2 Photos, Box

Drawing: (Cover--Color) Everyone's giving away services on the Internet, but what's the price?

Dionisio Munoz/Daily News

Photo: (1--2) no caption (Web sites)

Box: If you want it, Web site may give it to you (See text)