Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk program pays people to work at a computer doing things that people do better than computers. One job involved taking images of storefronts and matching them up to businesses listed in a database.
The original “Mechanical Turk” as a sideshow machine that it’s inventor claimed could play chess against a live opponent. The “machine” in fact had a human chess player inside making the moves. Amazon Mechanical Turks are the people behind the Amazon machine who do things computers can’t do well just like the original mechanical Turk.
Payment is via an Amazon.com account that allows you to transfer funds to your bank account.
Jeff Bezo’s describes most Turks as people with spare time wanting to make a little extra money.
Many of the assignments pay very little but some are interesting. For example, one asked for digital photos of homes in a particular zip code. It paid $3.50 for 13 photos. That may be good or not depending on how much travel is required, but it you’re a pizza delivery person in that zip code looking for extra cash during a slow period, it might be great.
You can see available assignments for yourself.
Some of the pay rates are incredibly insulting. One person wanted to pay 5 cents for other bloggers to post about his weblog! Others want to pay a penny or two for finding information you’d think Google would have readily available. Two English to Italian translation tasks paid over $10.00 each. So, don’t quit your day job but it pays more than watching Cable TV.
You may decide there’s not enough money in this for you, but perhaps you operate a business who might benefit from using “Amazon Mechanical Turks” to do simple chores.
That’s a good reason to visit too.
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