A little over a year ago my friend Luke Schnoebelen introduced me to MindSwarms. It’s a cool website where you participate in video surveys and earn money for your responses. It isn’t easy to qualify or be accepted to the studies but I apply for every single one. A few weeks ago I was accepted to a Tech and Activity survey and I quickly recorded my responses.
The survey asked me how I use my smart phone. Like most people in this digital age, my smart phone is just another appendage. I was honest, spoke about how I feel like I’m married to my phone sometimes, and how I use it to capture moments in my life and share them socially. I also talked about how I want to throw my phone against a wall on a regular basis because it SUCKS. In a few days $50 was deposited in my PayPal account and I went on my merry way.
About a week later I received a follow up email from MindSwarms. Apparently the company that ran the study was Microsoft and they really liked my honest answers. The marketing team behind their Windows phone wanted me to upload the pictures from my smart phone and offered another $50 to do so. If they liked my pictures they would send me a DSLR Camera (to keep), have me take pictures of my life for the next two weeks, send them those pictures to potentially use in print advertising, plus give me a $200 Visa gift card.
Did I do it? Well duh.
My DSLR came in the mail today. I’m 99% sure the reason they liked my pictures was because of Miss Madeleine. How could you not fall in love with that sassy girl? In any case, I have a brand spanking new camera and two weeks to take a bajillion pictures. Sorry friends, I will be chasing you down with a media release to sign. But it’s cool, you may end up on a billboard somewhere!
