Pandemic 'stay-cations' bring new opportunities to make money

People are spending more time at home during the pandemic, and that brings opportunities to earn money by sharing experiences and tips online. Or even just get fit.

Firms and application developers, including Keep and Fiture, plan to spend more to support creators for online courses, fitness apps and experience-sharing, all enhanced by new technologies on social media, plus artificial intelligence and smart hardware.

Fitness app Keep will offer 50 million yuan (US$7.8 million) in cash and a huge volume of traffic for content producers.

On the Keep platform, there will be 10,000 Koach or Keep Coach providers with monthly incomes of more than 10,000 yuan within three years, said Keep vice president Huang Jingjing.

User-generated content development has become a long-term strategy for Keep, which will provide support for handling traffic, product services and AI-powered recommendations.

This will help content producers monetize their offerings.

Yange, a 44-year-old man in Shanghai, has created a Chinese-style fat-burning dance in Keep's online community. It soon went viral ,attracting many followers of all ages.

The new era gives "special opportunities" for normal people, said Yange, who used to work in TV.

The pandemic, which has cut down on trips and meetings, sees more people on "stay-cations" getting into at-home fitness, offering opportunities for technology firms such as Keep and Fiture.

Fiture offers a smart device magic mirror, to allow users to do exercises at home, with online courses and AI tutoring.

It has more than 2,000 fitness courses with popular categories on aerobics, high-intensity interval training and Chinese-style dancing, the company told Shanghai Daily.

Fiture has raised over US$400 million since it was founded in 2019, through investors such as Tencent.

It has 1,200 employees, over 60 percent of them focusing on content production and technology development.