Get paid to take public transport via Kiwi app
Auckland commuters can now earn money while using public transport – and by the end of February those in most other main centres will be included too.
A free Kiwi-made app called Frenzy, which launched yesterday, pays people who use it to plan their bus, train or ferry trip and then view marketing content during the ride.
Users receive ‘‘Frenzy dollars’’ for each video they watch, game they play or quiz they take while travelling. Frenzy dollars are similar to airpoints and can be deposited into a user’s bank account, spent at partner retailers, including Spark and McDonalds, or donated to charity.
Frenzy’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Kathleen Webber, said that while the startup made its money in a similar way to other digital media channels, such as Google or Facebook, where advertisers pay to get their ads shown to users, it was unique in giving users a cut.
‘‘We are rewarding people for their time. We don’t want to be like every other tech company that takes all the profits.’’
The content that users engage with won’t necessarily look like a traditional commercial, she said.
‘‘It could be: here is a bank giving financial tips; or we talked to a provider who is keen to give some healthcare advice. You could test the level of a game, you could do some market research.’’
Webber said advertisers only received anonymised information about user engagement. For example, it might tell them the average age of users who watched a video was 21 but it won’t reveal all users’ ages. The company offsets the carbon emissions of users’ journeys by buying carbon credits.
Frenzy works by using publiclyavailable real time data on public transport routes and timetables and user location data, so the technology can see where the bus, train or ferry is and where the person is. If those locations consistently match, the technology recognises the user is on public transport and shows them content. Frenzy is available on iOS and Android and is expected to expand to Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown, Hamilton and Tauranga by the end of the month before launching in Australia in March.