Out of the blue, I received a Tweet from WeGoLook.com, telling me about their platform because they thought I’d be interested. Well, they got my number; I looked at their setup, and it’s pretty freaking cool.
WeGoLook is essentially a research service run by crowdsourcing. Their aim is to provide detailed reports of items, places, or people to potential buyers, so they don’t waste their time and money on a product/outcome that is less than desirable. The crowd is composed of “Lookers” across the nation who, when they receive requests, will personally trek out to wherever they product or place is. They answer some objective questions, take pictures of the object and any relevant labels or product numbers, and give details on the working condition and appearance of the item.
This seems simple until you consider the wide range of activities this could be applied to:
- check out a new apartment halfway across the country before you move
- make sure the guy selling you a laptop on Craigslist isn’t ripping you off
- get reports on every car dealership in town to find the lowest prices
- check the condition of a house or town after a storm
Heck, you can even send a Looker to check out a potential date to make sure they look like they do on their dating profile picture. Borderline morality, of course, but you can bet there are people who will want to take advantage of this service.
The sample reports on the website give a good idea of what the service will provide. Something I liked is that WeGoLook vigorously screens its Lookers to make sure they’re reliable. This makes sense; for a service like this, report accuracy is something to live and die by. And for people who don’t have a need for the service itself, being a Looker could be a pretty sweet deal. With payment for reports starting at $25 and reports assigned based on geographic proximity, you could get paid pretty well for a ten-minute drive.
The downside of this service is that its utility isn’t as accessible as I would like. Turnaround on reports is 2 to 3 days, but there’s no guarantee it will even happen in that time. And the $50 price tag on even the most basic reports is steep; I understand it’s probably to make sure there’s enough incentive to make the Lookers happy, but for that money the service is best used only for expensive or important things. And while WeGoLook offers many useful extra services, I can’t understand why measuring an object’s dimensions is an extra $8 instead of coming standard.
The bottom line is that whether you’re on the buying or selling side of WeGoLook, it’s worth looking into. The service can put your eyes, ears, and a voice anywhere in the country, and it shakes off the technological limitations of internet research by supplementing it with real-world knowledge. I’ve already applied to be a Looker, and you can bet that my next major purchase will be thoroughly scoped out by this service beforehand.
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