As parents, we are always on the lookout for interesting activities to engage and enrich our children. With a plethora of events and workshops lined up every other week, the search can be pretty time consuming.
With so many content publishers putting our lists on what to do, see or take our kids to, things can get a little mind-boggling since our attention span is getting as short as a goldfish’s (or not?). Information overload!
I was invited to try out this mobile application called Podsense that seemed like an interesting service provider who might be a friendly help to plan our weekend activities for the kids! This new mobile application promises exciting new concepts and features. With over 100 ads focused on activities pertaining to kids’ learning on their application for the month of July, it was eye-opening for me to browse through the activities on their application, and pretty much on-the-go. But the good stuff goes beyond that!
What is Podsense about?
Podsense is a mobile application that primarily pays its users (which are termed ‘Podders’) to view ads! The people at Podsense believe in beginning a revolution – in that people should be paid for offering information on their preferences and background.
What is happening now is the mass pilfering of your intimate information through your internet usage – through your social media activity and website history – and the sale of this data collected to interested parties (merchants, governments, large corporations) for a large amount of money! Although it’s your data, you are not even paid a single cent for it, and much less can be said about your prior consent…!
The Podsense team aims to change just that. They want to be able to pay each individual for the use of their data. More importantly, they want to ensure that each individual is able to control what information is being offered.
Therefore, they devised Podsense to accomplish these goals of privacy and at the same time, monetising data to allow users to earn extra cash on the sides. How they do this is also the most attractive feature of this application – paying you to rate the ads (which are termed “cards”) that they host on their application!
How Podsense works
Podsense is available on the application stores for both iPhone and Android phones, so anyone with a smartphone will be able to download it! Download the application from the stores, and you will be brought to this log-in screen.
Proceed to register your account – after you have completed the necessary steps of providing some key information and consenting to the application’s use of your data, you will be brought to the main landing page of the application (also known as the “Home” tab), where you receive a message indicating you have received 3,000 Noggin Credits.
How to Earn Credits and Cash via Podsense
Noggin Credits is Podsense’s form of online currency – upon reaching 10,000 Noggin Credits, you can redeem those for SGD10! You may view the number of Noggin Credits you currently possess in the top right-hand corner of the display screen, as seen below. Clicking on the Credits counter will bring you to the “Dashboard” tab – where you can choose to redeem your credits after you have reached 10,000 Noggin Credits.
Swipe left or right to indicate your preference on the card (ad) shown on the display screen. Swiping left indicates you dislike the card and will not want to view it; swiping right will indicate that you like the card! Swiping will earn you Noggin Credits – you will see the Noggin Credits counter on the top-right hand corner going up after every swipe! You can click on the card for more detailed information on it – don’t fret, if you want to revisit this after liking the card, all you have to do is to click the “Interested” tab to view the cards you have already liked!
The key thing about receiving more offers/products on Podsense is to fill up your profile so that cards that match your profile will show up! This also lets you view information about children activities such as music classes, sports workshops or art lessons, or other related activities that match your preferences.
Click on the “My POD” tab, key in your password and you’ll be able to input information on your preferences – doing this will bring more cards to the “Home” tab for you to swipe!
Don’t worry about your privacy, as it is their utmost priority! Apparently, only you are able to access your profiled data – the data that will be passed on to their merchants is kept completely free of your sensitive information – only anonymous sharing! What this means is that merchants will only receive aggregated data – which refers to statistics without any personal information tagged (i.e. 80% of females aged 30-40 with 2 children like your card). So, update your profile with an ease of mind!
My thoughts on Podsense
The application may be new on the market and they have some bugs to fix, but what makes this idea interesting is that parents get to discover relevant children activities, and at the same time we get to earn extra cash by browsing them!
ATTENTION Parents: #dontsaybojio! For July, they are hosting a “Podfest” – short for “Podsense Festival”, where they feature a large amount of products and services centred on a particular theme. And you guessed it – this month’s theme is on kids’ learning! The mobile application is now full of highly relevant products and services for our kids – and given that this is the last week, you’ll need to hurry to download the app to check it out!
For more information on Podsense, check them out at their Facebook or their website!
What are some of your favourite websites or mobile applications that you use to check out children’s activities? Do share them with us!
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