The lantern, version 2.0: make beggars in Internet access points

The so-called "social media" had its moment of glory in the 80's in Britain ('The Big Issue') and 90 in Spain ('The Lamp'), but as has happened to other newspapers inpaper Internet has gone virtually cornered into marginality, a paradox: only a handful of Africans sold today The lantern at the door of the supermarkets inMadrid and Barcelona.

A New Yorker marketing agency has launched a charity initiative which aims tobeggars who sold these papers to regain some of its lost revenue because of the Internet: turn them into hotspots, mobile access points for Internet roaming Internetthat require coverage . The homeless who participate in the project of BBH Labshave a shirt with the legend "I am a 4G hotspot." Passersby use their services may agree to a payment to the owner of the access point, either in cash or by PayPal,and sit within the coverage area of ​​the beggar. 

A beggar who does not participate in the project looks at his laptop.

The project has raised some controversy. Some feel that one of the newspapersjustifying the street was the participation of vendors in the generation of content(something that was not well in the Spanish case, as documented El Pais). It alsoaccuses the agency of trying to do business with the misery of others, somethingthey deny in their website: "The hotspot Managers [beggars] are all the money isentering."

On the web page with the map of access points so far are only a dozen "humanhotspots" involved, the company driving in a "beta test" to "optimize and validatethe platform" and that this can be adopted on a large scale. Do not forget that the newspapers 'social' came to be published in thirty cities in their moment of glory.