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Is using homeless people as hotspots helpful or exploitative?
March 12, 2012 1:00 PM | Read 27 comments27
By Community Team
Homeless Hotspot member Clarence lost his home after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. (YouTube)A new program at the South by Southwest festival that sets homeless people up as mobile 4G hotspots has sparked a heated debate.
Homeless Hotspots sets up nine homeless people with 4G devices that can allow walkers-by to access the internet in exchange for a donation.
The living hotspots are identified by t-shirts that read, "I am a 4G hotspot" and feature the Homeless Hotspot logo and the required 4G ID.
The recommended donation for using a Homeless Hotspot is $2 US for 15 minutes of internet use, according to tech.li. Hotspots founder BBH Labs, part of the marketing firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty, compares the concept to homeless persons' street newspapers, which are sold to support the community and educate people about their lives.
Clarence, a Hotspot volunteer from New Orleans who lost his home during Hurricane Katrina, said in a YouTube video that the program would find out if "this invention could work out to help the homeless."
But headlines on the story span a range of tones, from supportive to damning. Gizmodo's post begins with the headline "Homeless Men Turned into Human Routers," while the Register calls it a "roaming hobonet for pennies."
"This is my worry," wrote Wired's Tim Carmody, "the homeless turned not just into walking, talking hotspots, but walking, talking billboards for a program that doesn't care anything at all about them or their future, so long as it can score a point or two about digital disruption of old media paradigms."
Mark Horvath, creator of the We Are Visible campaign to connect the homeless to the internet and social media, had a more hopeful outlook.
"I love this idea. I love anything that creates a positive interaction between the public and our homeless friends," he wrote on BBH Labs' blog entry. "My only concern is, [is] this a marketing gimmick or a cause campaign?
March 12, 2012 1:00 PM | Read 27 comments27
By Community Team
Homeless Hotspot member Clarence lost his home after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. (YouTube)A new program at the South by Southwest festival that sets homeless people up as mobile 4G hotspots has sparked a heated debate.
Homeless Hotspots sets up nine homeless people with 4G devices that can allow walkers-by to access the internet in exchange for a donation.
The living hotspots are identified by t-shirts that read, "I am a 4G hotspot" and feature the Homeless Hotspot logo and the required 4G ID.
The recommended donation for using a Homeless Hotspot is $2 US for 15 minutes of internet use, according to tech.li. Hotspots founder BBH Labs, part of the marketing firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty, compares the concept to homeless persons' street newspapers, which are sold to support the community and educate people about their lives.
Clarence, a Hotspot volunteer from New Orleans who lost his home during Hurricane Katrina, said in a YouTube video that the program would find out if "this invention could work out to help the homeless."
But headlines on the story span a range of tones, from supportive to damning. Gizmodo's post begins with the headline "Homeless Men Turned into Human Routers," while the Register calls it a "roaming hobonet for pennies."
"This is my worry," wrote Wired's Tim Carmody, "the homeless turned not just into walking, talking hotspots, but walking, talking billboards for a program that doesn't care anything at all about them or their future, so long as it can score a point or two about digital disruption of old media paradigms."
Mark Horvath, creator of the We Are Visible campaign to connect the homeless to the internet and social media, had a more hopeful outlook.
"I love this idea. I love anything that creates a positive interaction between the public and our homeless friends," he wrote on BBH Labs' blog entry. "My only concern is, [is] this a marketing gimmick or a cause campaign?
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