Mob4Hire

January 18th, 2009 in Testing, by Head Honcho

http://www.mob4hire.com

Here’s the situation: You are a phone application developer and have just created an application that would surely be the next “in” thing. But you have a dilemma. You need to test out the application on different handsets, operating systems and carriers and this costs a lot! We’re talking like $5000 to $6000 for testing a handset.

Without further hesitation most would hastily release a not-so-tested version of the application and slap the ever so famous BETA logo on it. Now you can release your application to the market, bugs and all. So, where do developers go to have cheaper options? The answer is Mob4Hire.

Mob4Hire was launched on October 2007 by its founder Paul Poutanen, emerged as a Cambrian House’s Ideawarz winner, and is now leader in real world, crowd sourced, mobile application testing. Their goal is to connect mobile application developers with individuals who are willing to test applications using their handsets for a fee.

The creation of Mob4Hire sprung forth as based on the problems encountered by developers. Mobile application testing included problems like these:
1. Getting the handsets from different countries is very difficult.
2. Getting subscriptions to handsets is very expensive.
3. Sending people to test the application in other countries is also very expensive.
4. Using own developers to test is not a good idea since they could be good developers but bad testers.

The site is modeled around crowdsourcing to achieve a cost-efficient, cheaper, low-cost alternative to the problems faced by developers. The developers who need assistance in testing an application on different handsets and operating systems now have an option to use the crowd as their pool of testers. The site provides a platform for connecting developers with eager, lower priced, crowd sourced testers and focus groups.

Mob4hire uses a bidding process: A tester looks into the developer’s testplan and bids on it. The developer then gets to choose the testers. Through Mob4Hire, the application is then downloaded to the tester’s mobile phone. The testers then create test reports of what they find and then get paid.
Currently, the site has expanded its range of crowd and now has reached 1971 handsets, 220 networks or carriers, in 85 countries all over the world. Mob4Hire has also recently signed a contract for the crowd source testing of O2 Litmus.