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Amazon's Mechanical Turk
rscoggin writes "Amazon.com has a new program that wants you to 'Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it.' (example: 'Is there a pizza parlour in this photograph?'). For each task you complete you get a small payment, usually ranging from a few cents to a little under a dollar. It's named the Amazon Mechanical Turk after a famous hoax from the 19th century. Kill time and get paid in tiny increments to boot!" Similar to Google Answers, there seems to be a reliability ratings system and some incentives.
Pepsi pays Amazon 3 cents for product placement. You are shown an image of a Pepsi can. "What kind of soda is this?" "pepsi", you answer. You get paid 2 cents.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems that it's not really worth it. Consider the following task, for example:
Guess how much you get paid for that. 2 dollars? 3? That wouldn't be unreasonable, I think, considering that you're supposed to write an entire product description from scratch for which additional "research" is required. The actual amount paid is only 65 cents, though.
Maybe it's just me, but if I check to see how much I need to work in my regular job to make 65 cents, then it does not make any sense to invest more than a few minutes into a task like this, and it seems that it would take more than that to actually complete it. The fact that there's a review required afterwards doesn't exactly make things better, either - if what you did gets rejected, then you've essentially worked for nothing (I wonder if there's anything that keeps amazon from still using your description in this case, too...).
In other words, the whole thing seems like a good idea in theory, but it won't really take off until they're willing to actually pay you a reasonable amount.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I'm a bit too paranoid to type my Amazon user name and password into a site that isn't on the main amazon.com domain....I can't find it mentioned anywhere on amazon's main site. Can somebody a little bit less of a wuss tell me if it is legit?
Monstar L
Crime in your neighborhood?
Get a webcam...
After a quick review of the available tasks, I must say this looks like a huge scam. Most of the tasks are marketing oriented (e.g. copywriting, photo manipulation), for which experienced contractors get paid $30 to $50 per hour.
Only 75 cents to research and write a complete automotive product description? Are they kidding? Sure, they say I can copy the description from the manufacturer's Web site, but my time is still worth more than that. Besides, I think it's the responsibility of the manufacturer to make sure their Amazon listing is correct. That's how they do it on IMDB.
I can only hope the program will make more sense as they add more requesters and more tasks.
They are asking you to rewrite product descriptions and will pay you 60 cents?
Not only will the work most likely be shoddy, but it seems like they are trying to replace someone else's job by using this cheap online service.
Yes, for some it may provide rewards but if you calculate the amount of time spent on each item VS. the payment reward (usually a few pennies) it is just not worth someone's free time.
Why don't they just hire a staff of people to work on these 'HITS'?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I'm interested to know if those living overseas can participate. If so, they would drive down the labor costs so much that only truly desperate Americans would participate in this piecework scheme.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Rather than think about how much you could make per hour on this, think about how much your time is worth. Are you worth $65,000 per year? Maybe you're worth more or you value your time more? In any case, at $65,000 per year, you make about $0.52 per minute.
So to accomplish the 3 cent task and make your time worth it, you should spend no more than about 2 and a half seconds from the second you begin to the second you finish and get approval.
On some of the higher paying ones, oh, say $0.40 for writing a full product review, you could devote almost a full minute!
Of course, all that means is that when you logged in, they could have behind the scenes connected to Amazon as you and pulled up your address and other info to make it look legit.
OK, I hurried a bit but I felt as I had to.
/ /mturk.com
http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:
It is indeed in Amazon netblock but registering it through godaddy.com with a hotmail address... Gee, I wish I could show like 40 phishing mails I received with the same pattern.
Sadly there are many victims of phishing sites, and they get slashdotted because the database software can't handle that many requests.
I have never seen such a unserious whois from a big company like amazon. There are many registrars REJECTING hotmail.com contact addresses even!
Internet Cafe's are popular in many countries, although if you're paying by the hour to use a PC, that would really eat into your proffit margin.
Always look to spammers and pornographers to solve the world's most challenging computational puzzles before anyone else.
Re:Legit site. Ignore idiots.
Since when does a little bit of healthy skepticism make one an idiot?
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
Has anybody noticed that amazon is trying to build a database of storefront images? It looks like they have cars driving around taking random shots and storing the images with GPS coordinates. They then look at what businesses should be around and present this information with some random driveby shots to ask us if the business is on the picture.
I even got a photograph that clearly showed the car taking the photographs reflected in a window.
Not sure what this information is worth, but it seams they are building a database of storefront photo's.
If you're scoffing because you're already employed at a job that pays better, then you're doing what you should. Somebody already values your labor more presumably because you are more productive doing that job rather than identifying items in pictures. I work plenty of hours and am well compensated for it. My remaining time is very valuable to me. Perhaps one should not scoff, but politely say "No, thanks." The job one might scoff at today might be the job that saves your ass tomorrow.
On the other hand, if you're not working, underemployed, or paid really low, scoffing is probably not the right thing to do, and instead of moping about having no job, you should get busy and start looking for pizza places in pictures, and if they're close, maybe see if they have a job. When I'm not employed and work is hard to come by, I'll pump gas, work a car wash, flip burgers, sweep floors, empty trash, deliver pizza, whatever it takes. It might not be enough to live on, but it's closer to livable than making nothing.
Actually, you gave me an interesting idea.
"Micropayments" are used a lot of send small payments to 'charitable' organizations--not just bona fide charities, but things like Open Source projects.
Suppose you could sign up and do this, but have the proceeds sent to charity? Getting 3 cents isn't at all useful for me. If many people sent their 3 cents to a developing country, it would matter.
I can't navigate the site that well right now (everything's returning errors), so I'm not sure if this is in the works or not. But it'd be a nifty idea.
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suwain_2
I like the Mechanical Turk service. It's just like my CHI proposal from half a year ago made real.3 .html
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-03-25-n4
While most of the comments here seem to focus on the Worker side of this (those getting paid for answering simple questions), there's also the Requester side -- programmers tapping into the power of "fake" (but working!) AI. (Ladies and gentleman, we present you the global brain... it can think for you if you micro-pay!) I think we can implement many new programs/ websites in completely new ways, and there may even be fresh commercial niche programs coming out of this. Maybe in 50 years, we'll include AMT (or similar services) into our software as naturally as we now include, say, SQL.
I wish the site was working better at the moment (even before it has been Slashdotted, it was behaving strangely), and I wish it wouldn't ask me for a US bank account (being from Germany, that kinda hinders me from working with it).