Mechanical Turk

Recently I signed up to work at the Amazon site Mechanical Turk. The site provides a way for various people/companies to get small tasks done that computers just can't do. The premise is simple, to begin work you find a HIT: that fit your unique qualifications. (HITS are Human Intelligence Tasks, and for the purpose of the Amazon Mechanical Turk, these are tasks that other people are willing to pay you to do.) Complete the assigned task and then wait for the work to be approved. Once the work is approved you get paid. Simple enough :)

At any given time there are thousands of assignments available. These can range from looking up information, answering questions, rewriting articles or sentences, transcribing and more. Some of the HITs require qualifications. These qualifications can be gained either through taking different tests or simply requesting the qualification. Many of the HITs do require that you have a certain job acceptance percentage.

While there are some HITs that pay more than $1.00 each, the majority of them pay just a few pennies. However, with the easier ones that only pay a penny or two you can do a lot of them in a short amount of time. Generally, if a HIT is only paying a few cents and takes more than a few minutes to complete I just avoid them. I understand they are looking for cheap labor, but I do have a few standards. :)

This site is good for people looking for something to do in their spare time that will generate them a little extra cash. It's not a way to get rich! They have a $10 minimum earned level before you can cash out and if all you're doing is penny HITs then you have to do 10,000 before you can get some money out of it. Once you do reach a point where you want to cash out Amazon makes it very easy. They have various payment options including direct deposit to your bank account or even getting an Amazon gift certificate.

So far I've made a little money from this site, but nothing to write home about. I'm sure a person could make it a decent little side job if they were willing to put in the time and take the qualification tests that lead to higher paying tasks. Overall it's not that bad and I will keep going back. With the holidays approaching I need all the extra money I can get :)