PocketPacket Takes P2P to the Streets and Subways

Written by Ernesto on June 07, 2006 

The PocketPacket project (or PPP) is a simple idea aimed at taking p2p sharing to street level, while putting out the word on open source and free culture. Anyone who’s used bit torrent has taken something and given it pack to people they will never meet. PPP is all about simplifying, and personalizing that act. [...]

The PocketPacket project (or PPP) is a simple idea aimed at taking p2p sharing to street level, while putting out the word on open source and free culture. Anyone who’s used bit torrent has taken something and given it pack to people they will never meet. PPP is all about simplifying, and personalizing that act. Think of it as p2p brut, p2p in the rough.

What is it?

Basically, a PocketPacket is a modified envelope stuffed with personalized, free, hand made content and left in a public space for a stranger to find. The contents are decided by the PPP community over at sister site Bricolab.com, and are changed month by month for a different flavour of PocketPacket.

Flavour of the month

The first ‘flavour’ is the PocketPedia. The PocketPacketer prints off a Wikipedia article about something they are passionate about – the Pirate bay, for example – and stuffs it in a PocketPacket, along with a recommendation, invitation to PPP and other downloadable PocketPacket goodness. Next, they dump it on a train, a bus, or in another public space where bored people are likely to pick it up.

Through a simple act of sharing, the word gets out about p2p culture, and commuters are saved from having to read advertorial rubbish, churned out potboiler novels and train ads. Everyone’s a winner.

Go PocketPacket

You can download everything you need to get started at Pocket-Packet.org. Take p2p to the streets today.

Previously: BitTorrent Online Media Archive

Next: P2Pnet vs. Kazaa: Bloggers Freedom at Stake

3 Responses

1 Jun 07, 2006 at 18:14 by t d

what will we think of next… huh :)

2 Jun 08, 2006 at 18:51 by dixieflatline

stupid. the whole point of p2p is that we use digital media and use no natural resources. im the farthest thing from a hippie but i dunno….

3 Jun 09, 2006 at 07:09 by michael@bricolab

Sorry you don’t approve. I thought the whole idea of p2p was sharing…

But you have a good point about natural resources. Still… Nothing to stop people using recycled paper, eh?

The other issue here is the digital divide. PocketPacketing effectively crosses that divide, and brings a little piece of free culture to the streets, and to people that might not otherwise have come across it.

The message is simple: not everything free is worthless. That’s still a novel idea to some people, so inundated are we with marketing-focused content-lite garbage. If we want to do p2p culture any favours we’re going to need to convince the people who are likely to vote against pro-p2p measures, which makes it a lot easier for the DRM crew to do their bidding. There’s nothing to be gained from preaching to the converted.

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