Tips And Experiences with Amazon's Mechanical Turk Service
Reader Interactions
From the Diary of a 58 Yrs Young Turker
I enjoy completing surveys through Mechanical Turk. Being retired, I have very little to do with my time each day. This endeavor, somewhere between a pastime and a work project, can be mentally stimulating and endlessly interesting.
The hook for me is trying to figure out what the researchers are so determined to figure out. Sometimes their purpose is rather self-evident and at other times, they seem to ask a hundred questions about automobiles when they are really concerned with school buses.
In any case, there’s always that blank box at the end that asks “what do you think this survey was really all about?” I always respond that I have no idea because I am not a rocket scientist. Of all the types of projects available on MTurk, I prefer academic surveys because they are much more likely to pay properly and they usually reflect an honest attempt at academic research.
That isn’t to say that the college students who prepare and undertake the surveys are always very knowledgeable about life. At fifty-eight years old, I sometimes become a little amused when asked if I try to dress to impress my friends or what flavor of blue jeans I most covet. One type of survey that makes me pretty steamed is one that tries to bait racist responses.
If I feel that a researcher is putting words in my mouth – and pretty awful words at that – I will often return the HIT without completing it. I’ve lived with all sorts of folks all my life without much racism and these sorts of thoughts are not even welcome in the kingdom of my brain.
I’ve completed 1,550 surveys over the past nine months, and I average about $45 a week in income from this endeavor. During the academic months, the search for fresh surveys to do is much easier and one can make a little more money.
In the summers, academic surveys become a little thin and one should expect to make a little less. Bonuses are common in the winter months. Bonuses are not only less common in the summer, one also must deal with more rejections of work during this time of year.
In terms of hourly wage, I would be very surprised if I made $2 per hour over the entire period. No taxes are withheld from this and the money is paid promptly when requested. I have never stayed in touch with any requester beyond one or two surveys.
To those who are concerned about rejections, all I can say is – don’t let them bother you. You may accidentally do a survey twice without meaning to – especially if you’ve done a lot of them. The requestor will simply reject your submission.
I do try to send a little note back to the requestor to let them know what happened – e.g. I really didn’t do this on purpose – I just forgot that I had done it before. Do be careful not to get too angry with a requestor and say things that you don’t really mean.
This can lead to some adverse actions that you’d rather not deal with. Enjoy Amazon Turk – it is a rewarding and fun project for young and old alike.
Everyone can do it if you can read and think.
Comments for From the Diary of a 58 Yrs Young Turker
Jun 29, 2014 | Pastime? I highly respect you for your dedication working in MTurk. I think you’re seasonal if not veteran in MTurk.. as I can see, you know its downside and what’s going round and round in MTurk.But, with your knowledge and experience, you can channel it through some good efforts like being a part-time writer. Wishing you luck and more HITs 🙂 |
I Got Paid for My Prayer on Mechanical Turk
by Tina Botwin
(Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
- I’m motivated to work on Mechanical Turk for a little bit of extra spending money. My husband and I recently bought our first home – a fixer-upper – so we’re mortgage poor. MTurk allows me to purchase some items off Amazon that enhance our home without the money coming from our already strapped chequing account.
- The most unusual HIT I’ve done is one that asked me to say a prayer for this gentleman and the woman he loved to get back together. It gave words to say and then had to record your voice saying them. The prayer also asked for good fortune for the MTurker completing it and paid pretty good for a short, quick HIT so I did it.
- Some of the most lucrative HITS I’ve had is writing short articles that include certain keywords. Generally you have to write up to 200 words and include a short phrase within that, word-for-word (e.g. include the phrase “orthopedic dog bed”). These HITs generally pay $0.50, but you can really write anything, as long as it isn’t plagiarized, so it doesn’t take very long to do.
- I find there’s a lot of HITS that expect you to do a lot for very little. There are HITS that pay just a couple of cents that can take forever, like going through a series of 100 photos to determine if they meet certain rules of decorum. I try to avoid these.
- I probably make about $2/hour. I strive to make $1 per day. Some days that’s easy if there are a lot of good well-paying HITS that I qualify for and some days it’s not.
- I like the flexibility of MTurk. I’m not committed to anyone in any way. It’s something I can do while I have time to do it and drop when it’s no longer working for me.
Comments for I Got Paid for My Prayer on Mechanical Turk
Jun 29, 2014 | Handling it right You sure love hanging out with MTurk.. If you want, you can always put your efforts into a well deserving part-time job that will not burnout your energy.But, I can see you are doing fine. You sure know your limitations and what’s exploiting your effort. Keep it up!:) J |
Mechanical Turk Helps Me to Earn My Pocket Money
by A Turker from India
(July 17, 2012)
Mechanical Turk has been a blessing for me since one year. I am an Indian from Kerala state. An institution of my state was providing guidance for working. I was not having money for joining the course.
I borrowed the amount from my friend and joined for Amazon. I was not sure whether this is going to work. I just trusted in God. The first few days I was very sad that I did not receive any HIT.
Later I started working for each and every work. I was surprised by the change. I started up doing a 1 cent job. There were many other jobs but I was not sure whether I would be able to complete those.
Then I started working an essay and many more. Within 3 weeks I was able to earn a 70 dollar. I was happy.
70 dollar was a good amount in Indian rupees.
I was able to repay the whole amount which I borrowed.
When my first cheque came I was shouting with great joy. I thanked my God for his blessings. I used to wake up early and sleep late. My brother also helped me at my work. The surprise I had was when I played a game and won 5 dollars.
I could not imagine I got money for playing a game. The best HITs I love to do are surveys and games. I am among the one who takes surveys seriously. The more money I got the more I was interested in working.
But now a day I do not get any work. My earnings have reduced to a great extent. I am not able to understand the reason. I do not keep any relation with the requestors. Normally I work for at least 2 hours, but previously I used to work at least for 5 hours.
I am happy that I earn my pocket money or even more sometimes. I always wanted to thank the founder of Amazon. You have helped me a lot when I was in need of money.
Comments for Mechanical Turk Helps Me to Earn My Pocket Money
Jun 29, 2014 | Happy times That sounds great. Never heard about anything like this kind of story from HIT workers.. You sure did made extreme efforts to reach that level. Hardwork truly pays off, right? I’ll give you my two cents; channel your talent into a stable and fulfilling job. 😉 |
Nasubi-Inspired-Mission on Amazon Mechanical Turk
by Arun
(Limassol, Cyprus)
Few months ago, I read about Nasubi, a Japanese comedian who was locked in a room for a reality show until he managed to win ¥1 million on mail-in sweepstakes. I found that very interesting & tried to find out ways by which I can make money JUST using internet.
I wanted to see, how long it would take me to win/earn 500$ on the internet. Within few hours of research, I came across M-Turk & it seemed interesting. So, for me, sure, the money is a good incentive, but so is this personal “Nasubi-inspired-mission”.
I found that it is a good way to kill boredom too, some of the tasks are even addictive. I have done quite a few weird HITs, there were few in which I was asked to make accounts & vote for some people in online polls. There are others which ask me to write fake reviews of businesses.
I did some, but soon hated myself for it – I was actually helping someone to cheat. Anyway, this guilt didn’t last long as I rationalized this as : The genius who decided to use Mechanical Turk, deserves to win because he knows how to win.
There are few requestors with whom I shared some emails. One of them posts very technical HIT (which requires Java experience), so I guess he doesn’t get many. I was interested in the work he was doing, we exchanged some emails for a while. There are few tasks which deal with mathematics, they pay good money (& great bonus).
On one day, I made more money than what I would make in ~45 days because of these HITs. Unfortunately, we don’t get those often. I still search for them every day, perhaps they would post it again. On most other days, HITs with “survey”/”study” in them are easy to do.
When I need to improve my approval ratio, I fall back on “Oscar Smith,” they take time/effort, but he never rejects. When I find HITs which pay more than 15 cents & which have allotted time more than one hour, I accept them all before working on one of them.
This ensures that the HITs are not gone & I would have time to work on all of them. As for the last question you posed. Well, I already have a regular job – which pays well. I Mechanical Turk for at most 2-3 hours in a day. Also, since I don’t live in the USA, I am left with very low-paying HITs, so it will be silly to quit job for this.
Comments for Nasubi-Inspired-Mission on Amazon Mechanical Turk
Jul 18, 2012 | disagree about the cheating Interesting take or reframing of the cheating HITs. In my opinion, the guy asking for fake reviews won’t get far with his business.Also, from what I have heard so far, surveys really seem to be the most valuable job offers on the mechanical Turk. |
Jun 29, 2014 | Legit or not? What a good way to kill boredom 🙂 I often wondered how they do that — that kind of thing getting many votes.Do you ever go to sleep back then? Anyway, about those business reviews stuff sure does not sound right. But, I’m glad you found a new legit way of making money. |
I live in Canada, Earn $1 Per Hour, Still I am Happy :)
by Kevin Martin
(Ontario, Canada)
What motivates me (30 year old) to work on Mechanical Turk is the money, as well as having something to do when I am bored at home. I was one of those people that sat around all day reading random pages on the internet looking for things to do.
With Mechanical Turk I can have fun helping others complete jobs as well as get paid to do it! The most unusual HIT I have done was one that required me to look at the screen and move my head around mimicking one already on the screen.
I had my camera turned on and was recorded as I made all sorts of silly head tilts and bobs. It gave me a good laugh when it was over. I have not been able to get in touch with a requester as of yet.
I have sent out two different requests to requesters to let me know if they have any other work I could do and that I really enjoyed them. I have not yet received a reply. I am still pretty new to Turk, but the most lucrative job I had was to look at still pictures of a patch of land and make a little box around any squirrel I saw.
I believe it was only two cents a click, but it only took about 6 seconds – 25 seconds per picture. All of them being the same minus the squirrel made it go much quicker as you were more and more able to see the little guys standing out.
The second best one was where I had to play a simple number game against another random person. It was about 10 minutes long and we had quite the battle. When the HIT completed we were told we got a 3$ bonus. Was very fun and good money with a nice surprise at the end waiting for us.
The task that really turned out to be negative was one that wanted me to go on a webpage and give advice on it. It only paid a penny and after giving a few suggestions with links to explain why I thought what I thought and examples it was denied with a “No effort” tag.
I spent a good five minutes and wrote a small paragraph only to get denied a penny. I will be avoiding that person and line of work from now on.
I only make roughly a dollar an hour at this time.
I know it is small but, I am still pretty new and I am under the 500 HIT mark so I cannot accept any of the bigger HITs yet that requires more than I have. I also have pending qualification tests that if I get I will be able to take better jobs.
Besides Mechanical Turk, I would not know where to look for freelancing work. I like Mechanical Turk because I can do it on my break at work or for fun on and off after work. I have a very broad range of jobs I can do so it keeps me entertained. If I was offered a side job though, chances are I would take it.
Comments for I live in Canada, Earn $1 Per Hour, Still I am Happy 🙂
Jul 17, 2012 | Working not for the money, but for the meaning in life, right? So you are not really working for the money if you make so few dollars an hour.Is it that you find working for small amounts of money – as long as there is something to gain – more meaningful than just sitting around and procrastinating? This could be compared to friends sitting together playing Poker, but betting pennies to change the psychological aspects of the game. Just making an analogy here. |
Jun 29, 2014 | Hobby Hi Kevin! I can see you are enjoying being a HIT maker. 🙂 I used to do some freelance writing but I am now on a full-time job. There are lots of freelancing sites–just be careful of not being scammed. |
Dec 26, 2014 | Payment doubt How do you get your payment? |
My Overview of Different HITs completed on Mechanical Turk
by An Anonymous worker from Mechanical Turk
(July 17, 2012)
I am motivated to work on this site by money, but more so by the ability to lessen the amount of money I spend on entertainment as a whole. I have a set monthly budget on my spending and at times it was not enough to do everything I wanted in that month.
This allows me to add in more money to that monthly amount so I can spend more, or in some months spend less from my normal check due to the extra funds.
There was a HIT on morality, it would ask you weird questions then ask if you thought it was right or wrong basically.
One HIT was very disturbing and had a story about a kid with a kitten. The kitten would walk across his lap and the kid got excited and started to rub the kitten on his crotch. The HIT then asked if this was morally wrong or not.
I have not stayed in touch with any requester, but I do recognize some names now and will gravitate towards their HITs. I find and I do enjoy working with groups I am familiar with.
Most lucrative HITs tend to be quick surveys, but I have made the most off of Google results. There was a HIT that had you Google a keyword then paste the most relevant search result. It was $0.10 but only took a few seconds and had thousands of hits listed for it.
I was able to make a few quick bucks in no time just taking more and more hits from that group. Surveys are very hit and miss, some take far more time than they lead you to believe in the description. I was stuck on one for almost an hour and got very little pay out for it.
Other than that anything requiring video seems to take longer than it should. I currently make about $1 an hour. I do a few hits back-to-back and then go away for a while.
The people who referred me to this site make about $6 an hour so I am pretty sure I am doing something wrong. I guess I didn’t know that was an option and I have no clue how to get into something like that.
Comments for My Overview of Different HITs completed on Mechanical Turk
Jul 07, 2014 | Tutorial please I think you have to ask them for help or a tutorial? $6 an hour is a pretty decent amount of money with MTurk.. And hopefully you’ll be able to teach me how to do it also 😉 |
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