Amazon Mechanical Turk – Paid Crowdsourcing
Today I want to present you another nice money maker called Amazon Mechanical Turk, which is kind of different compared to simple Paid-to-click sites and such. The service has been around since 2005, but so far I had no time to test it by myself. But some days ago I gave it a try and made some easy cents…
Amazon Mechanical Turk is a so called crowdsourcing service, meaning that a group of people has to fulfill an assigned task in order to solve a problem. Most times it is used to solve problems where machines, especially computers, reach there limits.
For example let’s assume the task is to translate a book from Chinese into English. With help of computers it’s indeed possible to do the translation, but the quality is most likely very bad (as most computer translations are today). But what about 100 or more people, knowing both languages, doing the translation a bit at a time? The quality of the translation should be way better than a computer one, for now humans are more intelligent as any computer in the world…as yet.
Ok, but what about making money with Amazon Mechanical Turk I hear you ask? No problem, read on!
By signing up with MTurk, you become a so called worker, meaning you are able to fulfill such tasks a stated above. The tasks are called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) and at the time of writing there are around 15,000 available. Each time you have completed a HIT, you get paid a small amount of money ranging from some cents to several dollars. As a rule of thumb, the more difficult the HIT, the more money you will usually make. To give you some examples, I will tell about those HITs I personally have done already on Amazon Mechanical Turk to earn some money.
The first thing I’ve done, was to write a short article about registry cleaners. The person who requested the task seems in need of content for his/her personal website. So I only had to write about what came into my mind, the only requirement was to include the words “Registry Cleaner Windows XP” within the article. Writing that article wasn’t too difficult, it earned me $0.50 within only 5 minutes work.
The second task was to tag images. For each task I got paid $0.04. All I had to do was to look at three images and describe, in short words and tags, what was visible on it. If there was text, I had to write it in a special field below the image. This task was even easier than writing that article, but it paid far less (although it was more fun). The good thing is, that you can do each task after another, until you finally feel bored about it.
The last task I’ve done so far, was giving other websites a Stumble. I had to stumble 3 or 4 websites to earn another $0.05, easy “cash” for only some seconds work.
All in all, after only half an hour working for testing Amazon Mechanical Turk, I made $0.67 (yes, it’s peanuts…). But there’s more earning potential there, I have seen many task that pay $10 an up, most times you have to write a product or website review (much like writing sponsored posts).
I think, MTurk is a great service for earning some bucks online. You definitely won’t get rich from completing those HITs, but it’s enough to buy you at least a beer per month 
If you are an US citizen, you can cash out the earned money directly to your bank account. For international members there’s only the option to get an Amazon gift card.
I will use MTurk whenever I have some time (or get bored from the usual work), maybe I will make some bucks within the next weeks. Until then, have a look at Amazon Mechanical Turk and find out by yourself if this service is an option for you.
Greetings,
Querblogger
A beer a month? Um, no thanks.
Comment by Gary — April 21, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
Well, maybe even a beer crate (or a barrel?)
Comment by Querblogger — April 21, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
you made it sounds do easy and simple. hmmm, we will see.. Thanks for sharing
Comment by Personal Development Blog For Money — April 22, 2008 @ 9:07 am
At least my chosen tasks were kind of simple, but I believe there are way more difficult HITs (which usually pay more). I’ve seen a HIT that was about writing a 500+ word review on a product, which I think isn’t that easy to do. But as long as you can chose what you would like to do, it isn’t that problem.
Comment by Querblogger — April 22, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
I noticed you are talking about getting paid to “stumble” sites. If you’d like to make more money doing that you should check out http://subvertandprofit.com/user/signup?referrer=brianhanson37. Subvert and Profit pays you 1.00 to “Digg” or “Stumble” 3 or 4 stories. It takes about a minute to do them all (Assuming you have high speed internet). They have a $10 payout limit which isn’t that hard to do. Also, they only send you a few tasks a month so you aren’t bombarded with tons of tasks every day. If you sign up please use my referral as I used yours for NeoBux. Your able to see my email I believe so email me if you have any questions about it. Have a great day.
Comment by Brian Hanson — April 26, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
Thanks Brian, but I’m already a member there. And I can say, they really do pay!
Comment by Querblogger — April 26, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
I am totally agree with you as I have work with Mturk but suddenly I have found that ponly US and indian people can get money in cash other wise you have to use amazon gift. I have search and found one another site where you can earn money by Digg” or “Stumble. even if you are in pakistan. Here is link.
http://subvertandprofit.com/user/signup?referrer=waqar
Comment by vicky — August 23, 2009 @ 8:31 am
Thanks for sharing this information. I will give a try and let you know of my results with amazon turk.
Comment by analogstuff — September 23, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
Sounds like a great earning site, I only hate the payment option for international members. I hope they can use paypal.
Comment by scheng1 — December 1, 2009 @ 6:07 pm
I am earning about $20 or more a week on turk. Its not bad if you learn how to do the right hits.
I have earned in a year over $300, which is quite more than a beer. Bought some nice Christmas presents off of Amazon with the cash.
I have noticed a lot of spammers and scammers submitting hits recently and amazon does not monitor it very well.
Comment by jimmyz — December 27, 2010 @ 4:27 pm