The IT industry is like no other, and it would seem that a number of people in IT have captured or stumbled upon a great way to gain free marketing.

The last two weeks on Dragons Den has seen two IT related companies go cap in hand to the five dragons. Last week saw the online diamond supplier Diamond Geezer ask for £275,000, and last night Green PC manufacturer Very PC were after £255,000.

Unfortunately both failed in gaining any of The Dragons as a business partner, but should that be counted as a failure? Far from it.

Dragons Den is a hugely popular TV programme, but are the businesses that are appearing on the show not actually interested in actually gaining the patronage of the Dragons? Are they simply using the BBC as a way to promote their businesses.

Look at both instances, there is a great deal of chatter about Very PC and Diamond Geezer all over the web. And where there is chatter there are links. And on the web the hard currency to buy prominence in Google is links.

And this is my point, the likes of Very PC and Diamond Geezer have potentially done nothing more than use the BBC2 TV show to promote their business whilst not giving any equity in the business away.

Look at the blog posts written about Very PC in the last 24 hours – There were 95 in that 24 hours for the search term -’very pc dragons den’. Even at 10%, there would be nine links inbound to the site, hey, I’d take them any day of the week.

So in the grand scheme of things do the representatives of both Diamond Geezer and Very PC care they were made to look stupid by manipulative editing from the producers of Dragons Den? I think not, as they have got what they want out of the appearance – Publicity!

So are IT businesses using The Dragons Den for free publicity? You tell me, but I say yes.