tirsdag 9. februar 2010

Offerpal Media lets you pay for games by putting you to work

Offerpal Media is launching a new way to pay for games and other social apps today. Basically, Offerpal is going to put you to work.
The new alternative to making a payment for a game with a credit card is called Offerpal Tasks. With it, you can get what you want — a virtual good that would ordinarily cost money — by performing a task that someone on the Internet needs to get done.
Offerpal has set up an arrangement with Amazon Mechanical Turk, which has a set of listings for jobs that people want done for them. You can complete small tasks such as rating search results, categorizing web sites or articles, and answering questions. The Offerpal Tasks alternative is now available in Offerpal’s network of more than 2,000 web sites, apps, and games, said Matt McAllister, director of marketing at Offerpal, in an interview.
Within Amazon Mechanical Turk, the new service will let users select from thousands of “human intelligence tasks” whenever it’s convenient. The tasks are sorted into the type of work, how long it takes, and how much it pays. By fulfilling tasks, users can earn virtual currency that can be spent in the apps. This creates one more way for people without credit cards to pay for things on the Internet. And that lets app makers earn more money because they can reach a wider pool of people. But you have to be older than 18 to participate. Payment is made after the user completes the work and it is approved by the requester.
Other kinds of tasks include data cleansing, transcription, proofreading Web content, tagging photos, moderating user-generated content, and editing content. Normally, Offerpal provides alternatives where a user has to fulfill some kind of special offer from an advertiser, like signing up for Netflix service.
Gambit, one of Offerpal’s rivals, set up a similar deal with Crowdflower in October. At that time, some folks wondered if the arrangement would violate child labor laws. McAllister said Offerpal made its tasks available to people older than 18 for that reason. He said that Offerpal hopes to target overseas users with the tasks service. There are people in countries such as India or China who want to play games but don’t have the money to buy virtual goods in them. This service can address those players.
The early testing has been promising. If a game publisher can convert more of its players from free-only to paid, that can have a dramatic impact on revenues, McAllister said. A player could accumulate something like $5 to 15 in an hour or two of doing tasks, he estimated.

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