Amazon Mechanical Turk Review

Amazon's Mechanical Turk service (https://www.mturk.com/) is one of the easiest methods of making money online. You don't have to be hired, you just have to sign up. They refer to the program as 'artificial artificial intelligence'. Essentially, you do simple tasks that anyone could perform but are beyond the capabilities of current automated computer technology. Once you've registered you have thousands of HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) to choose from. Different companies and individuals post a wide variety of HITs and set a certain payout for each task completion. Once you complete the HIT it is sent to the requester for review, and once they review your work as satisfactory the money is deposited in your Amazon Payments account. This money can be used to purchase items on Amazon or you can have it deposited into your bank account.

Of the myriad of requesters on MTurk, I have had particularly enjoyable dealings with two companies that post frequently. The first is Dolores Labs, also known as Crowdflower. The majority of the HITs posted by Dolores Labs are simplistic and just require you to identify or search for information. The average payout is between $0.01 and $0.05 per HIT. They pay quickly and provide plenty of work. You won't make a lot of money doing these HITs but it's a great way to get started and learn the system.

The other company that I have had great experiences with is QuestionSwami. They post various short writing HITs as wells as writing proofreading tasks. Pay varies greatly depending on the length of the article and the topic. If you have any interest in pursing a freelance writing career this is a good place to get started. They also post special writing assignments for preferred writers that pay as high as $10 for a 500 word article. Most of the work I've done with them has been paid within 24 hours.

There are many more requesters and a wide variety of tasks available on MTurk. A word of caution: don't perform to many tasks for a single requester until you have been paid by them at least once or have it on good authority that they are reliable. I would also suggest never giving out detailed personal information to a requester. Be cautious and remember that it is possible that someone could post fraudulent work (this can be reported to Amazon if you do encounter issues).

If you need any help getting started with Amazon Mechanical Turk feel free to comment with any questions you may have.


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