Daily Tech Snippet: Monday, May 9

• What Do Consumers Want? Look at Their Selfies: Allison Shragal, 28, of Chicago, isn’t a model, or Internet famous — she’s an administrative assistant for a general contracting company. But almost every day companies pay her to snap photos of herself engaging in routine activities — brushing her teeth, eating breakfast, cleaning the bathroom. Her seemingly mundane images, when combined with thousands of others, contain insights that companies like Crest are eager to mine. They are using a Chicago-based company called Pay Your Selfie to gather those insights and present them in reports on consumer behavior that are meant to go where focus groups and surveys cannot. Among the tidbits that Crest, owned by Procter & Gamble, learned from its recent monthlong quest for selfies: There’s a huge spike in brushing from 4 to 6 p.m., probably tied to a desire for happy-hour fresh breath. That knowledge could be useful when Crest decides which times of the day to start future social media campaigns. Users of the app receive anywhere from 20 cents to $1 for each “task” completed — in Crest’s case, a snapshot taken “while brushing your teeth with your favorite Crest product.” Users can’t double-dip; the app allows only one selfie per task. The selfies are a good way for companies to obtain information that people can’t or don’t articulate in focus groups or other traditional research methods, said Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management. For example, they could lead to an understanding of which rituals go along with certain types of consumption, he said. Pay Your Selfie, which has been in business since last September, doesn’t require participants to have followers on a site like Instagram. In fact, users don’t have to share their images publicly at all (although they can). That makes it different from a company like Popular Pays, which offers Instagrammers the chance to post about brands like Nike in exchange for giveaways or cash.

• Companies are betting on a new way to protect your identity: the selfie: The selfie is about to get serious. Already ubiquitous at parties and for capturing Instagram-worthy landscapes, the act of raising a phone to your face and finding the perfect photo angle could take on a whole new role in people’s finances. Some banks, tax agencies and tech companies are making the selfie an integral step for people checking their bank accounts, shopping online and filing tax returns. Forced to find creative ways to guard against the rising threat of identity theft, a growing number of companies are moving from a system that tests people on what they know, such as a password. Now they want to ask consumers to provide evidence of something that can’t easily be changed or copied: their face.  A photo also can serve as a way for consumers to offer proof that it was indeed them — and not an imposter —  who made that purchase or submitted that form. For instance, MasterCard plans to roll out a service nicknamed “Selfie Pay” this summer through its member banks. Through the program, consumers would shop online as usual and after checking out, they would confirm the purchase by taking a selfie with a MasterCard mobile app. And Georgia will roll out a pilot program for the next tax season at the end of the year that gives taxpayers the option of creating a secure account where they verify their identities by taking a photo. If there is a match, taxpayers will be asked take a photo on their smartphones before their tax returns can be processed, ensuring the return was not submitted by a fraudster. To overcome that risk, the companies are requiring selfies that are a little different than the ones you might see on Facebook. After finding the right angle, consumers are asked to move around to confirm that the camera is capturing a live person and not a photo. In the MasterCard and USAA programs, users are told when to blink. Georgia’s tax program will prompt people to position their faces a certain way and scan for motion.  

• AlexaSite wins the Disrupt NY 2016 Hackathon Grand Prize: AlexaSite lets designers update websites using their voice. This technology could be particularly useful for designers working with clients. You could make small adjustments on the go without having to dive into your CSS sheets. AlexaSite uses Amazon’s Alexa API and works with Squarespace websites. Impressive! Runner-Up #1: Bumperz: Bumperz aims to make cutting edge accident, prevention and collision avoidance technology available to all drivers. It warns you when you’re approaching a dangerous area with a historically higher than average accident rate. It also warns tired drivers when they’re accidentally changing lanes. Bumperz leverages New York City’s open data when it comes to car crashes. Useful!  Runner-Up #2: Hungry Host: Hungry Host helps you find and cook the best recipes with whatever you have in your fridge. But this hack’s secret sauce is that it works with your Amazon Echo and natural language. You can simply tell Hungry Host your ingredients, then the app will guide you step by step with instructions and timers. Neat!