Note From Matt – My wife, Alana, and I went on a few gig walks last weekend to test the service. This is Alana's experience. At the end, I will add a little bit of feedback of my own about gigwalk.
Alana's Experience
I was super excited when I got assigned to my first Gig on Gigwalk. “They picked me! Out of every other possible person in the Temecula area…they picked me!” I thought. I had just downloaded the Gigwalk app from the App Store only a half hour before. I had found several gigs in my local area, all offering $5 to perform a small task.
Companies can hire “Gigwalkers,” average everyday people looking to earn an extra dollar or five, for performing small tasks using their Smartphone. Each gig will have specific requirements for the job, which are explained on the gig's posting. You can search for a gig using your phone's GPS, and all available gigs will populate on the map of your local area. “This is going to be so simple!” I thought.
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I was excited at the prospect of earning some extra money by doing, well, basically not a whole lot.
The gigs I applied to were to go to the nearby chain electronics store and photograph their Kindle displays, then answer some survey questions about their display, such as are the product demos working, is the signage correct for all the products and so on, photographing everything as I went.
Another type of gig I applied for was a little more complicated. It was for the search engine Bing, and the task was to go to a local business and take some interior and exterior pictures, and also a panorama using the Microsoft Photosynth application. When people use Bing to search for that particular establishment, my images and panorama would show up giving people a better search result. “What a cool idea! I have to be a part of this,” I thought.
Later I found out that the Photosynth gigs had been some of the Gigwalkers favorites. They used to pay a lot more than they do now and they are very simple to do. Although the idea of walking into someone's business and randomly taking a panorama photo standing in the middle of the room did seem a little invasive, Gigwalk does have a letter you can show to management in case they want to know what exactly you are doing.
When I originally applied for the first gigs, I said I would have them completed in 24 hours if I was chosen. When you apply for gigs, you can choose how long you think it'll take you to get around to that gig. Obviously, if a gig is in high demand, saying that you'll perform quickly will make you more appealing to whoever on Gigwalk's side picks to do the gig.
When you are done applying for a gig, Gigwalk will respond to you within one hour, so you don't have to wait long at all. I received notification that I'd been selected probably within 30-40 minutes after applying.
So, the next day my husband and I, along with our 8-month-old daughter, set off to go to the first gig at the electronics store. My husband was curious about the process and wanted to tag along, and I figured it would be cool (although maybe not totally professional) to bring the baby along. What a neat side job for a momma.
I'll just give a short rundown of the first gig, to give you an idea of the process.
Not living in a super metropolitan area, we had to drive about 15 minutes to the store, which ate up some of the potential profit from the gig. After taking the required photos, and trying to upload them into the Gigwalk app, I discovered that my Location Services wasn't turned on for the camera!
The photos will not be accepted unless Location Services is turned on, so I had to back and retake them all.
If you ever want to try out a gig for yourself, just make sure Location Services is on, and that you follow any of the other directions posted in the gig, or you'll find yourself doing the gig twice, like me.
Props to the employees …they must've asked me if I needed help finding anything like 27 times while I was in the store. Answering the survey questions required for the gig was a little time consuming but could be very simple had I done it before.
I submitted the gig after uploading all the photos, and answering the questions, and I will hear back within 7 days. If I did the job well, I'm $5 richer.
Update – We were paid out on the gigs within about 36 hours of completing them. Not Bad!
If the company requires more information, they could come back and ask more questions, or even ask me to go back and fix something or retake a picture. The whole gig from start to finish, not including drive time, took maybe 40 minutes to complete.
Overall, I would say that with this particular gig, $5 was definitely not enough. Especially including drive time.
However, I believe the idea of GigWALK is just that…to be able to walk to many different gigs and get them completed quickly, raking in some good spare coinage.
This would be great in areas like Los Angeles or New York City; somewhere really urban where you could do multiple gigs in one go.
We followed up with a couple more gigs and I even applied to a few more that I'll have to complete within 33 days….basically whenever I get around to it, or am in the area. I had a great time on my little gigs, and it was fun to bring along my family while I did it and even (hopefully) bank a 5 spot for a footlong sandwich or two.
Matt's Take On GigWalk
I don't believe Gigwalking has really expanded it's true reach outside of many major cities yet. We live in a town about an hour north of San Diego and, while there are a few gigs available here, they were all a good 5-10 minute drive apart from each other.
With Gigs paying out about $5 a pop, much of your profits could be eaten up in gas.
However, I think, if you live in a big city, GigWalking could be an absolutely fabulous Gig Hop opportunity! In some cities, you could like 5-10 gigs within a few blocks of each other, walk from gig to gig and bank an easy $25-$50 within a matter of a few hours. Now that's the kind of money we like with Gig Hopping!
I think GigWalk undervalues the service in areas like ours, off the beaten path a bit…
If people like in towns where gigs are miles apart, they should up the value of doing a gig a bit. Make it worth people's while to drive from gig to gig.
It really only makes sense in our area to do this type of gig if we're going to be in the area any way. For example, if there's a gig at the local Home Depot and I happen to need to go to Home Depot for something else anyway, it makes sense to go earn an extra $5 anyway…
It just doesn't make sense to drive all around town, from gig to gig, to make an extra $15 over the span of 2 or 3 hours…
If you're in a big city, however, jump all over this! GigWalking is really fun, really simple, and can make you some easy cash, right to your Paypal.
What's your take? Would you do GigWalks for this kind of payout?
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