Poo Internet. New barter in Mexico City

In the end of April a lot of colored containers like dustbins appeared in Mexico City parks. On there bottoms there are special balances. As soon as something falls to them, a Wi-Fi router actuates, and the Internet begins to work on the whole area of the park. That thing is… doo-doo. More dog excrements mean more time of wireless Internet. It is not necessary to have a password to access to Wi-Fi therefore you can check your mail and read Twitter absolutely free.

 

 “Poo Wi-Fi”. This action was thought up by advertising agency DDB by the order of Internet service provider Terra which finances installation and set-up of containers and routers. The idea is to kill two birds with one stone: to provide public places by free wireless Internet and to do these places cleaner. With population of 20 million people the Mexican parks became an excellent experimental territory because of huge popularity of dogs as pets and low consciousness of citizens themselves.

 “It is more interesting for people to look at their telephone but not to watch their dogs walk. And so Wi-Fi in the parks is good motivation to stoop down, gather excrements and put them into containers” – they say in DDB.

A cheerful promo video was disseminated when DDB started up the campaign. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwpRnA_-jaY&feature=player_embedded

There dogs poos are compared tactfully with chocolate ice-cream. In the sense to impress infantile psyche. On parks’ territories the white bones are hanged and they attract attention of people. These bones are Wi-Fi routers. In the day time the managers stay there and tell about idea and show where to take a special packet. But above all – the access time depends directly on size and weight of “deposits”. It makes someone to feed dogs with hearty meal, others to gather waste of another’s pets. It doesn’t harm a cause.

It is credited one minute of Internet for five grams. So, Mexico dogs produce 600 tones of excrements yearly. And if to gather all them it is possible to get free Internet for 228 years.

In spite of that idea aroused hailstorm of jokes and wonders, people began to use the service very actively and the parks became cleaner. In the future DDB and Terra want to use filled containers like bioreactors and generate electricity for the parks. But it is only one weak point of “Poo Wi-Fi” project. The containers now don’t tell excrements from ordinary litter and stones. You can pelt with everything and the Internet will work in any case. It is imperfection at least but not terrible. To walk along paths and grassplots became more pleasant.

So if you’ll be in Mexico in transit take a scoop with you and save on some pesos.

by Valentin Ivanov