Google’s ‘Task Mate’ Gives Pay To Consumers For Completing Simple Work, In Trial In India

Google is debuting a new crowdsourcing feature in India called “Task Mate” with the aim of helping people earn money through small jobs, a report from 9to5Google says.

The feature is currently in the early stages and limited to “selected testers,” the report says, but the process will let users seek out various tasks, complete them and then cash out earnings through a registered e-wallet account or through the in-app payment partner.

The tasks are “simple” according to Google, and accumulated from businesses around the world, classed as either “sitting” or “field” tasks. With field tasks, users are shown how many minutes they’d have to walk to complete them. There’s no information yet on how businesses can request to list crowdfunded tasks, or if it will cost them anything.

In addition, Google itself can offer tasks for users. The tasks could include going to a shopfront and taking a picture of it, which Google says will help improve its mapping abilities, alongside recording spoken sentences, transcribing sentences and checking shop details, according to the report.

The digital economy is likely to contain more of these types of crowd-sourced jobs from big companies, with a recent PYMNTS report noting Goldman Sachs‘ entry into the field with GS Accelerate, enabling employers to pitch new companies to their bosses.

Then there’s Roadie, a new company boasting a feature where one is “paid to go home” — or to deliver misplaced airline bags to travelers who happen to be on the route of one’s drive home after a shift.

And crowdsourcing will play a role in hiring in the next few years, PYMNTS writes, with a new company called Synack that works by crowdsourcing to find cybersecurity issues. The issue in the cybersecurity field, experts say, is that there’s a dearth of talent and expertise, and failing to cover cybersecurity issues can lead to fiscal ruin.