It’s a worldwide
phenomenon that nobody heard of a week ago. Heck, even after hearing
about Pokemon Go multiple times from many people over several days, I
still didn’t know what it was. I had to Google it. :-)
By now you’ve at
least heard about Pokemon Go, even if you’re like me and don’t
know what all the fuss is about. In a nutshell, Pokemon Go is an
App. It’s a game for your cell phone. You wander around looking
for funny little creatures (Pokemon) to capture so you can level up
and find more funny little creatures so you can level up again. Yup,
that’s what all the fuss is about.
But this game has a
clever twist… it uses the cell phone’s GPS to find your location
and map your surroundings within the game then places game
objectives, random Pokemon, etc on the map so you are forced to
traverse the real world if you want to go anywhere in the game. You
can play while going about your everyday activities, or plan a real
world activity to a destination that corresponds with an objective in
the game. The phone will even vibrate when you are near a Pokemon or
game objective, constantly reminding you there’s no need to pay
attention to driving or other real world activities.
People old and young
love the game, they can’t get enough of it. You have the challenge
of collecting Pokemon mixed with friendly competition, in-game
rewards, and a playful sense of treasure hunting and adventure.
The popularity of
Pokemon Go has soared so fast that droves of entrepreneurial types
are taking advantage of all the hype and earning real cash (and/or
Bitcoins) in the process. Here are a few of the ways I’ve seen
people making money with the Pokemon craze…
- Pokemon Go Drivers – I’ve seen more than a handful of people offering to drive others around (for an hourly fee) so the passengers can play the game in the real world without having to deal with silly real world stuff. Typical Wage: $10-20/hr.
- Pokemon Go Players – So you want to play the game, but don’t want to play it? Why not pay someone else to play it for you? Now you can and YES, this is a real thing! People are paying others $10 per hour or more to play the game for them. The players will log into your account and wander around their own town, collecting Pokemon for you and increasing your character’s level. I’ve seen more than one parent eagerly hire Pokemon Go Players to help boost their son or daughter along.
- Make posts on new Pokemon Websites, Get Paid in Bitcoin! – Bitcointalk.org is a great place to find a few webmasters looking to pay people to join their new Pokemon Forums and post relevant topics. If you like to post to forums and wanna talk Poke-whateves, this is an easy way to make some Bitcoin.
- Make Pokemon Go Related Videos and Monetize Them – One way to ride the coattail of this gravy train is make a video even remotely related to Pokemon Go then monetize it on YouTube. A quick search there will show the popularity is at a fever pitch, meaning it should be pretty easy to hop along for the ride.
- Write a Pokemon Go Related Blog Post and Monetize It – Um… kinda like the blog post you’re reading right now… except I haven’t really figured out the whole money thing yet. But seriously, it’s a huge craze and if you want traffic to your blog (like I want traffic to my blog), then maybe posting about Pokemon is worth a shot…
So now that you’re
“in the know” on Pokemon Go, I’m not sure if you should thank
me or curse me.
I’m sorry and
you’re welcome.
