A new app for iPhone offers to pay you for watching TV.
I’ll wait til you stop hyperventilating.
Available now at the App Store, Viggle is a free app. Once you install the app, you tap the screen and the app listens to what you are watching on TV, recognizes it as TV, and gives you 2 points for every minute you watch of TV.
Once you rack up 7,500 points (62.5 hours), you get a $5 gift card from retailers like iTunes, Best Buy, and Starbucks. Meh.
But, there are ways to collect bonus points, too. Watch an ad, get more points. Watch certain shows, get extra points. You get 1.500 points for just signing up. You get 200 points for getting friends to sign up.
Since you’re already thinking up ways to game the system, there are some rules. You have to watch a show for at least 10 minutes. You can’t watch the same ad over and over.
Now, there’s bound to be someone out there with a DVR, a wide network of friends willing to help with a social experiment, and someplace to sell iTunes cards. The clock is ticking.