100k microjobs ready for M4JAM

Local companies like TomTom, 1Life and Telesure have partnered with the new microjobbing platform M4JAM (money for jam) to make over 100,000 microjobs available in time for its launch next week.

M4JAM, which goes live at 08:00 on Monday 11 August, is a digitally enabled microjobbing platform hosted on WeChat, which allows companies to allocate simple microjobs to thousands of ‚Äòjobbers’ across the country and pay them via M4JAM and MTN Mobile Money.

M4JAM will launch with jobs from TomTom, Here Maps, Telesure’s Hippo, 1Life Direct and Jenus Health, and MyLawyer to name a few key brands, as well as around 20,000 ‚Äòfun jobs’ from WeChat and M4JAM in which new jobbers can carry out simple tasks and earn R15 a time, as they learn to use the platform. Those who opt to tell their friends about it on social media stand to earn another R5 each.

M4JAM co-founder and ‚ÄòChief Jammer’ Warren Venter says big name brands are showing great enthusiasm for M4JAM’s cost effectiveness, and – more importantly – its ability to offer personal interaction with jobbers on the back of a ‚Äòwarm referral’.

Many of the microjobs will take the form of market research, giving companies more accurate, effective sampling than using traditional survey methods,” says Venter. “They might carry out surveys where a person walks through a shopping area and asks people for information. These methods are typically quite costly and the results are hard to validate. Using M4JAM enabled by the WeChat platform, the results will be available online in real time, and the brand can tweak questions during the survey for better response base if necessary. This is a very low cost, low risk solution, and it offers massive distribution in areas where they typically couldn’t get responses easily in real time.

Each client company puts a minimum of 1000 jobs on the system at each time and our jobbers can earn between R15 and R30 per job.

Venter expects high levels of interest in microjobbing from smartphone owners looking to supplement their incomes, such as students, stay-at-home parents or pensioners. M4JAM expects to have around 200,000 jobbers registered by the end of the first month, as news for the microjobbing service goes viral.

The microjobs themselves are simple, he explains, and generally take only a few minutes to complete. “Jobs for the Telesure stable include completing short surveys, and other jobs for well know FMCG companies involved paying mystery shopper to visit their stores, where jobbers answer questions relative to in store customer service.

“For TomTom, jobbers will be asked to verify a point of interest on a map. Their GPS coordinates will confirm that they are in the right place, then they will be asked to take a photo of the premises and fill in certain information – such as a street address, company name or URL,” says Venter.

TomTom is excited about the potential M4JAM’s model holds for adding value to its datasets. “TomTom is looking forward to unlocking the potential of the M4JAM mobile community to enrich and maintain our mapping data in Africa,” says Etienne Louw, General Manager at TomTom Africa.

Once M4JAM reaches its full potential, it could revolutionise the way TomTom mapping data will be updated on a daily basis to cope with an ever-changing real world. M4JAM adds another way for TomTom to maintain our mapping data for Africa, tapping into the intelligence of a widespread mobile phone community,” says Louw

Regular jobbers will be rewarded by moving up the rankings and earning more per job they complete based on the quality of the jobs they complete.

Through the MTN Mobile Money partnership, microjobbers can accumulate their pay in an e-wallet and cash it out at a Pick ‘n Pay or Boxer store, paying R4 for this transaction.

Keith McIvor Head of Business Development atEtie Mobile Money Is enthusiastic about M4JAM’s potential: “Moble Money is delighted to partner with M4JAM, which aligns perfectly with “growing South Africa Incorporated”. It is about job creation and entrepreneurship, independence and accessibility. It is an exciting venture that Mobile Money is proud to be a part of and support.

Commenting on the M4JAM innovation, Jon Hoehler, Co-chair of Mobile Monday South Africa, says: “Needs drive innovation in emerging markets! M4JAM is geared to deliver and innovative employment platform through mobile channels like WeChat with a basic need in mind, empowering the unemployed to find a micro job by simplifying the engagement logistics and red tape faced by all South Africans.

“In the South African marketing community, where mobile advertising is still relatively undervalued, M4JAM offers marketers the opportunity to reach a mobile connected audience through an innovative dynamic platform. Giving brand stakeholders return on investment through actual activations,” adds Nicolle Harding, CEO MaxAxion and Chair of the Mobile Marketing Association of SA.

* Follow Gadget on Twitter on @GadgetZA