Underheard in New York: The story behind the project

The Underheard in New York concept is a spinoff of the snarky website "Overheard in New York."

It's the brainchild of a group interns from the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty. The concept is simple, yet brillent: Four homeless people — Danny (@putodanny), Derrick (@awitness2011), Albert (@albert814) and Carlos (@jessie550) — were given their own prepaid cell phone, a month of unlimited text messaging and a Twitter account.

The goal was to raise awareness and give a peek inside the daily struggles and unexpected challenges of being homeless in a major urban city

I have to say that I think it worked. I have never tweeted or blogged about the homeless, and look… I have posted 2 blogs and about 10 tweets relating to this project. It worked on me!

Well done interns! !

Sources: Nydailynews.com, Mashable.com

Homeless and Tweeting

I found this article on cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com I found it so interesting that I just had to share it with you. This is just some of the highlights of the article. The entire article is posted here.

"Derrick Wiggins, 44, began his daily tweeting at 5:41 Wednesday morning, and it wasn’t about the quality of his French roast coffee or his favorite “American Idol” contestant.

It was to let his roughly 3,800 followers know that he had woken up safely in the New York City Rescue Mission, a drop-in shelter on Lafayette Street, and eaten breakfast there.

His next message, at 6:03 a.m., outlined his immediate plans: “It is going to be a cold day my plans are to minimize the amount of exposure to the cold by making use of the subway.”

Mr. Wiggins’s Twitter handle is @awitness2011, and the profile on his Twitter page explains that he is “tweeting from a prepaid cell phone.” It identifies him as “A native New Yorker and a Giants fan. Homeless.”

Mr. Wiggins is one of four homeless men who were given prepaid cellphones so that they could create a Twitter following, as part of a project started by three recent college graduates who are interns at the BBH advertising agency in TriBeCa.

“We had the idea to use social media to help out the homeless,” said one of the interns, Rosemary Melchoir. “One goal was to increase the interaction between homeless people and the community around them.”

Underheard in New York, whose goal is to “help homeless New Yorkers speak for themselves through Twitter."

Read Entire Article On Cityroom.Blogs.nytimes.com