Smartphone ROI
This looks like a promising concept; using the ever-growing pool of smartphone users to get simple tasks completed cheaply and pay them for doing so.
That's what is being proposed by Field Agent - a new iPhone app that uses ‘crowdsourcing' so save employing permanent...field agents.
Field marketing is a subset of marketing that focuses in analysing and optimising how products are presented in the field. Mainly that means retail. So if you're Coca Cola, or EA, or whatever, you rely heavily of your retail partners to stock and display your products properly to ensure you get maximum exposure and, ultimately, sales. But as you can imagine, employing field agents full-time to go around doing this can be pretty expensive.
These guys figured there are already millions of people milling around visiting the same locations as field agents - the general public. Why not pay them to do this instead? The reason this has only recently become a viable way of doing things is that the install-base of smartphones is only now starting to reach mass-market levels.
So now iPhone users (with Android, at least, likely to follow soon) can download the free app, register, and be notified whenever a job is available near where they are. They then just complete the task, with the same geo-location technology being used to confirm they did indeed visit the location, and get paid a minimum of a quid for doing so.
The business model involves Field Agent being able to offer these field marketing services to clients more cheaply than its competitors, and its headed up in Europe by Chris Pearson, who ran his own field marketing company on the UK for many years, so understands the business.
"Field Agent is set to revolutionise the Field Marketing industry as we know it - thanks to widely available GPS-enabled smartphones and a crowd-sourced workforce," said Pearson. "We have essentially created a new dynamic where information is now user-demanded and user-supplied. And especially in the current economic climate, we're pleased to make the service both affordable for clients as well as providing cash to the individual."
The client interface is entirely web-based too. You can see the Field Agent website here and the iPhone app here. If you download it let us know if it delivers as promised.
