I’ve never actually seen the setup in the street and just happened to find out the creator is something of a neighbor, since his office is 3 floors up from mine. Regardless the contraption caught my attention and I snapped a couple shots from my iPhone thinking it was a fun little idea. But low and behold with the power of google, flickr, youtube, and wordpress a whole new side, much more elaborate lay behind this seemingly innocent cardboard facade.
http://www.youtube.com/user/brooklynmobile
Yes Brooklyn Mobile is a makeshift cardboard box but it is also an internet videobooth. Part of the Broadcaster Project, which seeks to develop public information appliances, the booth can be found meandering the streets of downtown Brooklyn (mostly around Jay St, Fulton Mall, Livingston, Atlantic, Flatbush).
What is a public information appliance you ask? Well, it’s sort of like a public telephone – cheap, ubiquitous, easy to use, with many vendors. So, while still in it’s infancy in terms of vendors, in the case of Brooklyn Mobile it’s a public video booth that allows you to place a public photo or video online, much like how a public phone booth is used to make a phone call.
The goal of the project is quite multifarious and you can find their project notes on google docs (along with more scenarios like those below) but one of the most interesting is this idea of creating a public history file, that not only documents human culture and viewpoints but also allows for the dissemination of information in a new way and (while again still in somewhat of an embryonic stage) the idea is to make it as accessible as a public phone.
Imagine for example you know an amazing artist or musician. This person is not technology inclined. Their work is not available online because they don’t like computers and can’t afford to hire someone to make a web page for them. They go to a broadcaster. It’s as simple as a stereo or old rotary phone. Turn it on. Place yourself or your artwork in front of it. Press the button. A video or photo is captured and uploaded automatically to public stream (youtube/flickr/blogger/etc). Or, you lost your phone. You are separated from your friends or family. You’d like to make contact but you don’t have numbers memorized. If you have a quarter and there is a broadcaster in a store or public place nearby, you can post a public note. Tagged with your name and the details of the physical location of the broadcaster, the message finds its way to those who care about you…assuming someone out there cares about you.
So it may not be winning any prizes for innovation exactly but what it boils down to is accessibility and connection. Look at the success of NPR’s StoryCorps program and you can see they’re onto something.
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.
By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, creating a growing portrait of who we really are as Americans.
What the Broadcasters Project proposes is to push it even further, with uses that aren’t limited to a sound booth or particular purpose even, just the idea of supplying a tool that the public can utilize and innovate on their own. How they intend to put it into the market is another story…
