The word busking first saw English language publication back in the mid-19th century in Britain. It's a term that was

possibly derived from the Spanish word buscar, which means to seek or to search for, but which also

potentially evolved out of other words that shared a Latin root, such as the French busker to shift

or to filch or to prowl, or the Italian Bouscare,

which means about the same as the aforementioned French term.

It's also possible that this word came to us via the Old English term for a traditional Greek

boot, Baskin, which was thick-souled and elevated and often worn by performers on stage.

Figuratively then, buskin perhaps came to be associated with the theatrical or performative,

and eventually shared a derivation of its name with performers of all sorts, rather than just

dramatists. Whatever the case, buskers, people who busk,

who participate in busking, are people who perform in public, and who usually travel around

to do so, but not always. Buskers are also folks who live off what they make from the public,

from spare change in the occasional dollar or pound, the even rarer,

10 or 20 tossed into their hat or jar or open guitar case.

Busking as a business model, though, and the way some of these performers earn a living, how they

collect money after sharing their craft with the world, has been evolving these last few years.

And while part of that evolution is the consequence of the mobile internet and social networks,

each year some lucky few buskers will segue into full-time creative careers after a stranger

with a smartphone shares their performance with the world to much acclaim.

But there's another facet of this technological evolution that has influenced this slice of the creative industry, almost as much as

Instagram and YouTube, and almost certainly more broadly and directly. And that is the point-of-sale

interface. Traditionally, buskers play music or recite poetry or dance,

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