'Homeless hotspots' draw attention at SXSW

Critics say a marketing agency is exploiting homeless people by having them act as mobile WiFi devices for South by Southwest attendees in Austin, Texas. Manhattan ad agency Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty hired 13 homeless volunteers for $20 a day to carry a device that would allow South by Southwest technology conference-goers to access the Internet in exchange for donations, The New York Times reported Monday. Adam Hanft, chief executive of the marketing advisory firm Hanft Projects, told the Times the scheme highlighted the divide between the homeless and the tech-savvy people attending the conference. "There is already a sense that the Internet community has become so absurdly self-involved that they don't think there's any world outside of theirs," he said. Homeless shoe shiner Kevin Tucker, 55, of New York City, told the New York Post Tuesday he'd "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 you're giving me a shirt, too? I have no problem with it," he said. BBH said on its Web site the ploy was merely a "charitable experiment." "Homelessness is actually a subject being discussed at SXSW, and these people are no longer invisible," said Saneel Radia, director of innovation at BBH.