The Essential Guide to Amazon's "Mechanical Turk"
Tips and Tricks to getting the most out of Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk
Mechanical Turk is an online marketplace for "crowdsourcing". This means that "requestors" post tasks online, which people all over the world can complete for payment. Read on, it's a jungle out there.
What is Mechanical Turk?
Mechanical Turk is a place where workers (or "Turkers") complete HITS (Human Intelligence Tasks) for money. An example is to write a description for a video. Most tasks can be completed in 60 minutes or less. Much like Ebay, Amazon creates the platform, and takes their cut. Amazon collects 10% commission based on what Requestors pay to "Turkers". Amazon does not create the HITS, only the platform for others to provide them.
The Good....
Mechanical Turk has work available to everyone 24/7. It is easy to sign up, and earnings can be transferred to a bank account free of charge. Earnings also can be used at Amazon.com immediately after you are paid. There is zero commitment to long term work. You can complete 1 HIT per year or 50 per day.
Mechanical Turk is difficult to cheat. People who "spam" HITS (complete them quickly by typing in random text and choices) will have their work rejected, which will lower their "HIT Approval Rate". The "Hit Approval Rate" works like this. Suppose you complete 100 HITS, 25 are approved and paid, and 75 are rejected, your "Hit Approval Rate" would be 25%. The majority of HITS require a "Hit Approval Rate" of 90%. This is relatively easy to do if you are not a spammer and if you choose your HITS carefully.
There is no limit on your income, and like most things, knowledge and hard work will pay off.
The Bad....
Mechanical Turk does not pay much. You don't have to leave your home, and you can work in your pajamas, but this is not a place to get rich. As a Turker, its tough to find decent HIT's, but more on that below.
The Ugly.
The ugly side of Mechanical Turk is "Click Fraud". "Click Fraud" is paying people to click, vote, or fill out forms to receive information on products. The person or entity providing the hit is some type of affilliate of the target website, and is getting paid by the target site to get legitimate sales leads, not Turkers hankering for 50 cents. Here is an example.
*********************************************************
Hello, and thank you for joining our team and attempting to complete our task. You'll find all instructions below. Don't identify yourself as a secret shopper or mturk user at any point. Thanks and good luck :)
* Click here
* How does that web page look? Is it appealing to the eye? Is there anything you'd like to see improved?
* Submit your information completing the form/signup process and request information from a school.
* How fast did the next page load? Were there any errors? Please comment on your experience on the site. Did the resulting page load quickly? Did you experience any errors? Comment on your experience with the site.
**********************************************************
The reward for clicking on the site and filling out the form is $4.15 Now that may not sound like much to you, but in Mturk dollars that is like 100 bucks. Who would pay $4.15 to get some feedback on how their site loads? Not in this economy pal. I hope I'm wrong, but this is click fraud. There is all kinds of assurances like "never identify yourself as a secret shopper" (wink wink). Right.
Believe me, when you get all kinds of marketing calls from the cable company you requested more information from, they won't be aware of "secret shoppers".
It could be that this is not click fraud, and that the cable company is aware. Perhaps they wouldn't mind paying $4.15 to assault you with sales calls. Either way you lose. For tips on finding GOOD hits, see below. ALWAYS REMEMBER, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
