Lockerz online surveys
This is the final part of an investigation of the new Lockerz website (Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here).
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How does Lockerz make a buck?
So far I have talked about pointz, but I have not really talked about how Lockerz generates its income, they seem to be giving stuff away for free, right?
Well of course there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The most obvious way Lockerz earns money is through market research aimed at a clearly defined demographic group: young people.
You can earn points by answering online survey questions at the site. The Lockerz folk call these online surveys “dailies”. Today's dailies, for example, include the question “What summer film won your heart?” and provide a text box for your answer.
As well as basic market research questions like this, Lockerz also has dailies that can be used to further refine the demographic, for example today’s site asks “Would you wait five hours in line for a pair of limited edition sneakers?” By answering this question, Lockerz can classify you as someone who cares about their sneakers, and filter them out from people like me who wear carpet slippers that have a hole in the bottom.
It is unclear what Lockerz does with the answers you give to their dailies, but as their terms of use say “if you send us your creative or original concepts or ideas or any confidential or proprietary information” you “automatically grant Lockerz a perpetual, worldwide, unlimited, irrevocable, transferable, assignable, sublicenseable, royalty-free license to use the Submissions and feedback, and exercise all copyright, publicity and other rights with respect to any such Submissions and feedback” the likelihood is that they will be selling their highly-targeted marketing data to just about anyone they like.
Oh, the opportunities of that!
Lockerz adheres to a lower limit on the age of their members at thirteen, “Pursuant to the terms of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).” Users must confirm that they have reached their thirteenth birthday, or otherwise get parental consent before they can register as a member of the site. However, if you as a parent, provide information about your child to Lockerz, you consent to Lockerz using that information as they see fit.
my Conclusions on Lockerz
Lockerz then is an online survey site with its own proprietary currency (pointz) that you earn by providing personal information about yourself, and which can in turn be used by Lockerz and its partners to gather market research data and to target you with relevant advertising.
In this way, it is not much different from the many other get-paid-for-completing-surveys sites out there. (See here for some good advice about online paid surveys.)
The main distinguishing characteristic of Lockerz is its demographic target audience, teenagers and young adults – that “z” generation.
As Lockerz has so many young members, it seems to me that it has a moral duty to take very good care of the personal information that is being collected at the site. I have no objections at all to market research; it’s an essential oil for economic efficiency.
However, I would have liked to see more, much more information about how Lockerz intend to use all that personal data they are collecting, and how it will be associated with the survey data, to whom it will be sold, and so on. At the moment, this information is not available to me. And presumably it’s not available to 350,000 other parents either.
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This was the third and final part of an investigation of the new Lockerz website (Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here).
If you would like to comment on this article, or comment on Lockerz itself and how it works, add a comment below. But please do not advertise your Lockerz invite site or tell me that they are “scammers who must die”. If you do, I will remove your comment.
And if you’re a parent with your own Old Fogie web site, you could always put up some linkz to this article to help spread the word ;-)
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- 11406 reads
Your whole argument is based on assumptions.
Stop that.
THANKS FOR SHARING THIS REVIEW.REALLY IT IS GOOD TO BE HERE.KEEP UP WITH GOOD WORK.
Let's see... is it a scam?
BTW-- "dumbass teenagers" isn't to imply all teenagers are dumbasses. But the ones that go for lame shit like "ptz" are.
Look at it this way-- even if it WERE real... Is it worth your time to do all this stupid crap for a PS3? They're $300 now for Jesus' sake.
Lockerz may or may not be a scam. But one thing's for sure-- it's lame as hell. And just watching those two sleazy dorks on the front page should be enough to tell you that.
Here's what Liberty Media "sayz":
Aims to be the destination for generation Z where commerce, content, and community converge.
I didn't realize we were on generation Z yet. I guess the "Z" must be for putting at the end of everyz goddamnz wordz. Commerce, Content and Community Converge. I guess they're getting ready for Generation C next.
Anyhoo-- way to be corporate tools pwn3d by the Man, kidz.
Ok I have been with lockers for a while and have got a LOT of great stuff! And Anyone on the internet is a ginipig sorry for my bad spelling... Facebook, Myspace, Everyplace makes money from how many people visit there site and wether or not you click on somthing... I LOVE Lockerz! Its great to be able to get something for "your oppion" cuz to me yours aint worth a cent... but thats whats great about the site... there are no wrong answers and no one to say your not qualified to answer it... so its hard to redeam BOO HOO... cry to your mommy,... you still have your points and when the site dose release you WILL be able to get something... So suck it up and if you dont like it dont join... but dont ruin it for the rest of us...
Fact of the matter is Lockerz is the best free GPT site on the web now like it or not. When they launch they will be the biggest store for generation Z. Providing great stuff about fasion, film, art, decor, music, and mayhem all in one place. Probably be able to use them PTZ to buy the asion, film, art, decor, music, and mayhem. I for one will LOVE THIS SITE. I am 100000% sure millions of other generation Z's will agree with me. If you dont simply G T F O, IT IS FREE.
Thats really cool, so next time redemtion comes around you still have all your PTZ to spend and have a nice $50 in the mean time to play with.
Congrats, I wish I could have that luck :-)
I only joined lockerz about 2 months ago as I did hold for a while waiting to see what others would say about it, and how it would turn out in general.
I have to say that the site isnt to bad really and so fay I have collected 170 PTZ as I only have three referrals and dont always do the daily, however I have to say that even though I am not wanting to redeem yet with the PTZ I have I still havnt been able to even get to try as it always says out of stock, so this worries me somewhat as to when I do actually want to buy something, wheter I can or not or has it been a waste of my time logging in everyday and answering this daily even though it only take less than 5 minutes a day it has still been a chore and would be nice to actually get something in return.
Also have noticed that recently there site is always down and I am unabe to log in at all and they never reply to my emails asking genuine questions.
Does anyone have an idea of when the site is actually being launched ? and is there anything that im missing out on, i mean like can I actually earn PTZ from doing anything other than the dailies and logging in ?
I am in fact one of them fogies lol so please let me know if I am in fact missing something here :-)
Oh and nice wrtten blog, thanks
You did some good research, but I'm sorry to say Lockerz.com is a true, non-scam site. I've gotten two 360 games, know a guy who got the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 via Lockerz, and I am currently saving up for a Macbook Pro.
Lockerz.com is currently in a Beta state, meaning the site is a tad glitchy at the moment. Once they're out of that beta state and launch the full site, there will be virtually no bugs and will always be in stock.
Hi, this is a very valuable article. Thank a lot s for the information you provided. It would be great if got more post like this. It's really great research and well done work.I wish you good luck.
I love these "lockerz is a scam" articales..
I guess receiving my dec 31st redeemed PSP isn't a proof, but, I don't mind answering some questions for a survey if it gets me a free psp system... I mean, companies try to find out what young people want in the future (to buy) all the time, Lockerz simply found out the best way possible. give stuff for information.
But hey, thats just me.
cya.
I redeem a game and received a email about it being approved, so when it comes I will post it. Let's hope it does lol...
Free WoW Cards
How about my 50$ from lockerz?
I couldn't get my prize as it was over-redeemed but i got 50 bucks and my PTZ back.
man you failed.
instead of posting this trash you could have answered some dialies!
http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/3206/lockerzj.png
I have just recently got my lockerz zlister tshirt. I'm not sure if it is really a 100% scam. But, getting an item like a wii or psp is mostly impossible because lockerz never restocks and items are gone as soon as they appear
There are many reports (including from my own disappointed children) that it is nearly impossible to redeem your points and get any prizes. How have you done?
Great Article! I'm in the target group, And I don't care if it's "Just another survey site" Because the surveys are one question long and i have a "z-lister" So I'm making like 200 points a month just for logging in and answering a question.
200 points = 2 xbox 360 games = around 110 dollars a month :)
I'm a teenager and got busted... I jost signed up today to help a friend get some "PTZ".. I was actually suspecting about the site, it seemed weird for a site like that to have unfinished sections or few information... so today was my last "daily" answer.
Thanks for the article, you did a really good research. I'm telling my friends not to get busted like I did.
Nice article, although i´m 100% in the target group it took this article to find out what this is...i think it´s bad
thanks for the info
Excellent article, thanks. :)
Thank you!
VK
Very informing article. Nice points too.
Hey, that's a nice and very honest article...
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