Easy Money For Taking Pics With Your Smartphone
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Sometimes it's as easy as driving to a nearby location, pulling out your phone, and snapping a picture -- all for quick cash.
"Gigs can average anywhere between 5 to 10 to 15 dollars, depending on how lengthy they are usually," Daniel Tompkins told KDKA money editor Jon Delano.
Tompkins is a GigWalker.
An IT manager for a software company, Tompkins does this on the side for an online service called GigWalk.
This gig was to shoot a picture of the store front of Smoke Connection in Dravosburg, made possible through an app from GigWalk that anyone can download for free to snap requested photos with a cell phone.
"Upload, just like that. Boom. Twenty dollars," says Jordan Niles, another GigWalker, after shooting a picture.
GigWalk is not alone.
Easy Shift is another popular app that you can use to do similar work.
"Primarily we're collecting data on the merchandizing execution for our brand manufacturing customers," says David Gottlieb, president of Easy Shift.
Gottlieb, says his clients want information about how particular stores sell their products -- and their competition!
And that's where you can make some money, says Niles.
"Taking a photo of something that will take less than five minutes is pretty much a no-brainer."
Gottlieb says since January about 800 people in Pittsburgh have completed over 23,000 tasks for his clients through the app.
"Most manufacturers, most food companies, or health and beauty companies simply don't have the manpower to be in all the stores that we can be in," adds Gottlieb.
Now these apps for a shift or a gig can take you almost anywhere, like the local neighborhood supermarket where you'll be asked to go up and down aisles taking pictures of certain products or perhaps a display case.
It won't be long before it really adds up to some money.
Tompkins says he tries to combine his gigs with his shopping.
"We'll have some for Shop 'n Save and for Giant Eagle, and when I go in I'll look to see if there are any, and I'll do them," says Tompkins.
"And I'll actually say that was a $15 one or that was a $10 one. And I'll say I spent $100 dollars on groceries. Actually, I only spent $90 because I did a gig while I was here."
GigWalk and Easy Shift have lots of simple tasks at all kinds of stores from Walmart to Target to mom 'n pop stores.
And sometimes store managers and even customers won't understand what you're doing.
"If you'd be upset if someone approached you and asked you what you were doing, then it's not for you. You got to have kind of a thick skin," says Tompkins.
But answer the questions and take the pictures, the cash is yours.
Tompkins: "I've done them as high as 30 dollars."
Delano: "Thirty dollars?"
Tompkins: "Thirty dollars for a half hours' worth of work."
Not bad.
Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On Twitter
