Beta User Feedback: WheelCoin Move2Earn
We recently announced the private beta of WheelCoin, a Move2Earn (M2E) app designed to gamify and incentivize green mobility around the globe. Prior to launch, our beta program became oversubscribed exceeding 5,000 signups within just a few weeks which was encouraging.
For one week now we have had hundreds of our initial private beta testers experiencing WheelCoin and earning WheelCoin too, providing feedback on everything from UX to future feature upgrades to the quality of our detection system which allows users to automatically be rewarded for walking, biking/taking scooters, trains, metro and bus (while also detecting car and plane).
The detection system is generally 95%+ accurate across all modes except for bus and car which sometimes confuses the detection system as people’s driving pattern occasionally emulate bus patterns (e.g. when they are dropping people off or running quick errands) and sometimes buses emulate more car patterns (e.g. when they are more direct shuttles, or stopping infrequently). We have a roadmap to improve the accuracy of bus vs cars in the future, but have decided the public release will retain rewards for buses while creating a mechanism for users to notify us when the detection was flawed.
The overwhelming feedback from users has been very positive. Freddy K perhaps had the most encouraging response:
It was actually fun, and I did most of that just to try the app, so the goal of making people reduce their footprint by gamification actually works!
I say most encouraging because the whole goal of WheelCoin is to make it fun and engaging for people to choose greener modes of mobility, thus leveraging what we refer to in mobility as nudging them with incentives. I can speak from personal experience using the app for the past month that knowing the app is going to detect when I take a car or go green, provides enough of a nudge for me to take a metro instead of a taxi for example. While I live in Barcelona and have used WheelCoin numerous times, last week I was in Dubai for Iomob and WheelCoin adventures and was able to validate the app was 100% accurate detecting my movements and I had many high WheelCoin earning days, despite the heat.
It’s true I did take a car a few times for important reasons (one at least was an EV) but as you can see WheelCoin detected more than a dozen journeys including walking, metro and cycling/scooters.
Several other early beta users have also validated the quality of the detection system all around the globe. Cay, based in Tokyo, has had quality experiences so far.
Kurikinton was also pleasantly surprised with the quality of the detection system.
Meanwhile, a user from Taipei is also feeling inspired by WheelCoin.
It turns out this user is actually a train conductor in Taipei so in another response confirmed a “love of this app.”
The next step is the more public beta with the original 5,000 subscribers who will gain access to the apps as soon as they are approved in the Apple and Google (Android) app stores. Then we have an ambitious short and long term road map to refine the UX and features and bring in a range of exciting NFT-based gaming mechanics in the coming months and into 2023. Here is the current roadmap through next year.
If anyone is reading this and attending the Mobile World Congress in Las Vegas from September 28th to 30th, let me know and we will see if we can hook you up with access to the beta. Also I will be presenting WheelCoin at the International Mobility Summit in Copenhagen next month so perhaps I’ll see you there. Otherwise feel free to join us in our Discord channel: https://discord.gg/IoM
About the Author
Boyd Cohen is the CEO and Co-founder of Iomob, a decentralized internet of mobility (IoM) network. Since obtaining his Ph.D. in strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado in 2001, he spent the past two decades focused on accelerating the path to a low-carbon sustainable economy. This included publishing 3 books, multiple peer reviewed articles, frequently contributing to Fast Company and starting a handful of ventures in the smart cities and sustainability arena.
