Xipto: Make Money with Your Cell Phone

The concept

Xipto's motto is "Endorse what you love. Pass it on to others." Basically, it's Google Adwords for cell phones.

How it works

You sign up for a free Xipto account, and select (that is, endorse) a sponsor you wouldn't be ashamed to shill for. Xipto sends a confirmation code to your phone, and after you return to the site and enter the code, you're good to go. Whenever someone calls you, they will hear a 30-second advertisement instead of the ringtone. You earn a few cents for each call.

Not available for all mobile providers

Or even most of them. Xipto is a very new service, and it has to be offered by your mobile provider. It just became available as a limited trial through my mobile provider, Cincinnati Bell Wireless. If you are not a Cincinnati Bell Wireless customer, you can sign up for Xipto's waiting list, and they'll let you know when your mobile provider becomes part of Xipto.

How does it really work?

Xipto works through a "personalized ring-back tone service," or RBT. RBT service is offered by the mobile provider, and when you sign up for Xipto you are authorizing Xipto to designate your sponsor's advertising messages as the content for your personalized RBT. Xipto activates RBT service on your account, but if there are any charges for RBT service from your mobile provider, you are responsible for them. So check that out before you sign up.

What does it sound like?

My husband got a Xipto account this week. Now when I call his cell, I hear this: "Your friend wants you to hear this message while your call is being connected." Then it plays an advertisement for the Cincinnati Zoo. If he answers before the whole advertisement has played, the advertisement is interrupted. There is no delay in placing or receiving a call. If he doesn't answer, the whole advertisement plays before the call goes to voice mail.

Xipto plays only one advertisement per call. If you have endorsed more than one sponsor, Xipto rotates the sponsors each day. My husband says that on his end, the cell still rings with his selected ringtone four times if he doesn't answer it. (What, he's screening me now?)

Caller reaction

The first time I called my husband's cell phone and heard the advertisement instead of a ringtone, I was surprised. If he hadn't told me about Xipto ahead of time, I might have hung up thinking I'd dialed a wrong number. We will see if he gets more "missed calls" with Xipto in place.

I also realized that when I'm listening to the Xipto ad, I have a sense of missing some information that I was used to having. After thinking about it, I realized I usually count the number of rings I'm hearing and on the third ring, I start to expect no answer. With Xipto, I don't know how long the ad is going to be, so I lose the predictability of counting the rings. It is a little unsettling, but if everyone started using Xipto I know I'd get used to it.

How much can you earn?

So far, my husband has earned twelve cents. You can go online to check your earnings at Xipto's site, though there is a lag of a couple of days while Xipto tabulates the calls. How much you earn depends on how many calls you get and how your sponsor(s) set up their campaigns. Sponsors can offer a minimum of four cents per call, and can set a maximum budget. The ad will be "served" until the sponsor's budget is reached.

How are you paid?

According to Xipto's FAQ, you might be paid through Xipto or from your mobile provider. Options I saw on my husband's account were only for payment through Xipto, via Paypal or a paper check. The frequency of payment wasn't specified for Paypal, but the site says paper checks are issued every three months.

You can also "share" your earnings by giving all or part of the money you earn on Xipto to a non-profit organization. This feature is available from the Endorser page.

What about the cell phone version of "click fraud?"

According to Xipto's sponsor page, sponsors "only pay for ads that people listen to." Their terms of service includes this warning: "Endorser may not make use of computerized methods, auto-dialers, or other false actions to increase call frequency with respect to any advertising campaign." In addition, Xipto suspends endorsers who have what they consider to be unusual calling patterns.

Also, Xipto's program includes "frequency capping," which distributes a sponsor's campaign across endorsers to place a reasonable limit on the daily frequency that a campaign's ad is played for a particular endorser. This makes sense. Some cell phone users get dozens of calls a day, often from the same person. A campaign will reach more individuals if it is spread across endorsers.

Managing sponsors

Xipto offers you a lot of control over the sponsors you endorse through the Endorser page of the Web site. You can add and remove sponsors any time, and you can endorse more than one sponsor -- which might be a good idea to keep the pennies flowing, in case the campaign expires on a selected sponsor or the sponsor's budget is reached.

If you select multiple sponsors, Xipto rotates the sponsors daily in the order you have them selected, or you can set up your account to play the messages that are paying the most per call first. The offers per call when I checked were either four or five cents per call. One nice feature is that you can preview the message your callers hear on Xipto's site, before you select a sponsor.

Conclusion

It remains to be seen whether callers will complain about hearing an advertisement before someone answers the phone, or if there are so many missed calls that my husband won't want Xipto. I'm also wondering if, outside the trial phase, our mobile provider will charge for RBT service so that the Xipto earnings are offset by this charge.

But overall, Xipto is pretty cool, for both cell phone users and advertisers. I'm betting Xipto will soon become business as usual for cell phone users, once it is offered by more mobile providers.