I am not so naive as to believe that the Internet could ever provide me with a "get rich quick" scheme. However, in these dark times (I'm too old to get a fast-food job and too dumb qualify for a good job...and my field of expertise, English Composition, is overpopulated by attractive young women) I often find myself surfing the net for "keep your head above water quick" schemes (KHW's). One of the more interesting KHWs I have clicked across so far is the Amazon Mechanical Turk
The Mechanical Turk is a web service where you can get paid very small amounts of money to perform simple tasks that cannot be performed by computers (Amazon calls these Human Intelligence Tasks or simply HIT's). For example, one common "job" requires you to look at a hundred digital photos and click on the ones that appear to have inappropriate content (note: you must be over 18 for that particular HIT). This job was kind of fun. I looked at a bunch of pictures and clicked the nasty ones. It took a minute or two and I earned $.04.
HIT's range from simply going to a website, for which one usually earns a penny, to writing a 500 page article on a specific topic, which could net $2.00 or possibly a little more. For one job, I was paid seventeen cents to describe something unique about my home town (both the Unibomber and the creator of Little Orphan Annie have lived here). One HIT that I quite liked had the worker (or Turker) look at a digital photo of a business card and type the card's information into a preset form (name, position, company, etc.). This task only paid $.02 per card, but there were hundreds of cards that needed to be done. So, a Turker with high stamina and good eyesight could do this task all day long at two cents a pop.
I haven't tried a full day of "Power Turking" yet. But I did work straight through for a little over an hour yesterday and I made $2.05. This is not exactly the type of wage I had in mind when I went to graduate school. Like I said, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but it does seem to work as advertised. And, clocking in at 2 bucks an hour, a Turker who is persistent or desperate enough could at least supplement his or her income.
The Mechanical Turk is a web service where you can get paid very small amounts of money to perform simple tasks that cannot be performed by computers (Amazon calls these Human Intelligence Tasks or simply HIT's). For example, one common "job" requires you to look at a hundred digital photos and click on the ones that appear to have inappropriate content (note: you must be over 18 for that particular HIT). This job was kind of fun. I looked at a bunch of pictures and clicked the nasty ones. It took a minute or two and I earned $.04.
HIT's range from simply going to a website, for which one usually earns a penny, to writing a 500 page article on a specific topic, which could net $2.00 or possibly a little more. For one job, I was paid seventeen cents to describe something unique about my home town (both the Unibomber and the creator of Little Orphan Annie have lived here). One HIT that I quite liked had the worker (or Turker) look at a digital photo of a business card and type the card's information into a preset form (name, position, company, etc.). This task only paid $.02 per card, but there were hundreds of cards that needed to be done. So, a Turker with high stamina and good eyesight could do this task all day long at two cents a pop.
I haven't tried a full day of "Power Turking" yet. But I did work straight through for a little over an hour yesterday and I made $2.05. This is not exactly the type of wage I had in mind when I went to graduate school. Like I said, it's not a get rich quick scheme, but it does seem to work as advertised. And, clocking in at 2 bucks an hour, a Turker who is persistent or desperate enough could at least supplement his or her income.
No comments:
Post a Comment