NY ad agency rigs homeless as mobile Wi-Fi zones
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, Im not here to rob you, and Im not on drugs Im just your friendly neighborhood hotspot.
The homeless are being turned into walking Wi-Fi aerials dispatched with devices to peddle Web access to passers-by as part of a charitable experiment by a Manhattan ad agency.
Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty handed out the free MiFi gadgets to the peddlers along with T-shirts bearing their names and the words Im a 4G hotspot for its controversial Homeless Hotspots project at the South by Southwest (SXSW) arts and tech festival in Austin, Texas.
Alberto Martinez/American-Statesman
NET PROFIT: Armed with a MiFi device, Clarence offers Web access in Austin, Texas, yesterday as part of a possibly Big Apple-bound project that turns the homeless into Wi-Fi hotspots.
The company will promote the concept among homeless shelters in New York City and elsewhere if the response is good, BBH honcho Saneel Radia told The Post.
These are homeless individuals. Theyre carrying MiFi devices. Introduce yourself, then log on to their 4G network via your phone or tablet for a quick, high-quality connection, the company says on its Web site.
This year in Austin, as you wander between locations murmuring to your coworker about how your connection sucks . . . youll notice strategically positioned individuals wearing Homeless Hotspot T-shirts.
BBH says it simply wants to offer the homeless a new way to cash in on todays technology.
The homeless are instructed to stand in a certain area and let customers come to them. Its suggested that users pay their human service providers $2 per 15 minutes, although any donation is accepted.
Customers must be within 30 feet of the homeless person to get the service.
Homeless New Yorkers were split over the idea.
I wouldnt do it because I can make 10 to 12 dollars an hour here panhandling. From that to maybe $2 a person is a long jump, scoffed Robert Johnson, 48, who uses a wheelchair and was working Grand Central.
But homeless Kevin Tucker, 55, who was shining shoes outside Grand Central, said, If [Johnson] wont do it, I will!
Id do it in a second. Out of every 20 people who sit down at my stand, at least six are on their iPhone or their BlackBerry or something trying to get Internet. I see it as a business opportunity. And youre giving me a shirt, too? I have no problem with it.
There were 13 people from a shelter in Austin participating.
Theyre trying this new invention now . . . to help the homeless that want to participate and try to see if we can move this up to be more successful and more profitable for a lot of people, said one, a man named Clarence.
Critics flocked to Twitter to denounce the project as inhumane.
Straight from a horror story: human homeless hotspots: SXSW is where tech, pop culture and bad taste meet, tweeted Lindsey Becker.
Radia defended the project.
Homelessness is actually a subject being discussed at SXSW, and these people are no longer invisible, he said on the firms Web site.
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland and Frans Koster
[email protected]
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/buddy_spare_us_some_internet_zpbNhlQ5bLOKEZ6U8QlJYI#ixzz1p2ju68p2
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, Im not here to rob you, and Im not on drugs Im just your friendly neighborhood hotspot.
The homeless are being turned into walking Wi-Fi aerials dispatched with devices to peddle Web access to passers-by as part of a charitable experiment by a Manhattan ad agency.
Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty handed out the free MiFi gadgets to the peddlers along with T-shirts bearing their names and the words Im a 4G hotspot for its controversial Homeless Hotspots project at the South by Southwest (SXSW) arts and tech festival in Austin, Texas.
Alberto Martinez/American-Statesman
NET PROFIT: Armed with a MiFi device, Clarence offers Web access in Austin, Texas, yesterday as part of a possibly Big Apple-bound project that turns the homeless into Wi-Fi hotspots.
The company will promote the concept among homeless shelters in New York City and elsewhere if the response is good, BBH honcho Saneel Radia told The Post.
These are homeless individuals. Theyre carrying MiFi devices. Introduce yourself, then log on to their 4G network via your phone or tablet for a quick, high-quality connection, the company says on its Web site.
This year in Austin, as you wander between locations murmuring to your coworker about how your connection sucks . . . youll notice strategically positioned individuals wearing Homeless Hotspot T-shirts.
BBH says it simply wants to offer the homeless a new way to cash in on todays technology.
The homeless are instructed to stand in a certain area and let customers come to them. Its suggested that users pay their human service providers $2 per 15 minutes, although any donation is accepted.
Customers must be within 30 feet of the homeless person to get the service.
Homeless New Yorkers were split over the idea.
I wouldnt do it because I can make 10 to 12 dollars an hour here panhandling. From that to maybe $2 a person is a long jump, scoffed Robert Johnson, 48, who uses a wheelchair and was working Grand Central.
But homeless Kevin Tucker, 55, who was shining shoes outside Grand Central, said, If [Johnson] wont do it, I will!
Id do it in a second. Out of every 20 people who sit down at my stand, at least six are on their iPhone or their BlackBerry or something trying to get Internet. I see it as a business opportunity. And youre giving me a shirt, too? I have no problem with it.
There were 13 people from a shelter in Austin participating.
Theyre trying this new invention now . . . to help the homeless that want to participate and try to see if we can move this up to be more successful and more profitable for a lot of people, said one, a man named Clarence.
Critics flocked to Twitter to denounce the project as inhumane.
Straight from a horror story: human homeless hotspots: SXSW is where tech, pop culture and bad taste meet, tweeted Lindsey Becker.
Radia defended the project.
Homelessness is actually a subject being discussed at SXSW, and these people are no longer invisible, he said on the firms Web site.
Additional reporting by Amber Sutherland and Frans Koster
[email protected]
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/buddy_spare_us_some_internet_zpbNhlQ5bLOKEZ6U8QlJYI#ixzz1p2ju68p2
