How To Make Real Money Virtually

Technology has changed the way we live our lives, and it has also given us a whole new virtual world of opportunities that we didn’t have before. From virtual cheap online mailbox services to virtual Personal Assistant jobs, there are now more ways than ever to make money now in the real world from the virtual one.

Stickers and Emojis

When speaking to each other now, many people replace words with pictures, filling text messages with emojis, from sad faces and broken hearts to suggestive produce and party hats. Their more commercial versions are “stickers,” which can be tailored to specific events, brands, or people. App makers, marketers, and branding firms are making tonnes of money from the sticker industry, and if your core business is apps, then you could be too. You could design a line of stickers to sell via the app stores run by Apple and Google. Many sticker makers don’t charge much, and while the payoff is slim if you’re doing this on your own, try getting involved once you have a paying client on board, like a company or a celebrity who commissions stickers and the related “keyboard” technology.

Mobile Gaming

Millions of people play mobile games, most of which are free to download. Many of these games have small in-app purchases which many people pay for so that they can win their games more quickly. Mobile game studios are the ones making money from this but other developers of recreational apps, including online dating services and language-learning programs, also benefit from this free-to-play, pay-to-advance model.

Virtual Currency

You’ve likely heard of Bitcoin – but what about Ether, Dogecoin, and Zcash? Most online-only “cryptocurrencies” aren’t controlled by government entities which have helped them to attract a following among digital privacy advocates and investors looking for the next hot commodity.

Financial services and technology startups, especially those with experience in the complicated and highly regulated financial markets, are best positioned to jump into the world of virtual money or “blockchain” technology that helps it move around the digital universe. Your most significant business opportunity is to start a digital wallet or an exchange, where you generate revenue by charging fees to buy or sell these virtual assets. Some startups are looking to the blockchain, developing and selling applications for this new type of financial system.

Virtual Assistants

There’s a growing demand for digital assistants like Siri or Alexa that can understand spoken requests and perform tasks, such as scheduling a meeting, calling a friend, or making a payment. Startups that develop machine learning for existing digital assistants stand to make the most money out of this, while some newcomers are creating their own app-based assistants. This new breed of artificial intelligence is built on speech-recognition programs and other quickly evolving technologies. If you have access to a smart group of programmers who are eager to take on a sophisticated topic, you could develop and sell a standalone app, or license it to third-party companies for a fee. Or you could sell your whole company to someone like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft who have all recently acquired machine-learning startups–some for hundreds of millions of dollars-to power their own digital assistants.