Net Hustlin'

Amazon's Mechanical Turk is a place where web developers list odd-jobs that they need done, along with the price they are willing to pay. Most of the tasks are really easy, such as finding a title for an article or finding the best picture for a product. You can sign up for free and do the tasks immediately. The pay is pretty low, but the work is easy. Most of the tasks (called "HITS") range from 2.00-.01. Here are a few examples of what a HIT would look like:


Transcribe a 15-minute podcast ($1.50 + bonus)

Answer a single demographic question (.02)

Give a 100-word review of the movie 300 (.20)


If you see a HIT you would like to take, you can accept the HIT immediately. You complete it on the site without having to log-on to a third-party site, unless that's part of the task.

I signed up with Amazon Mechanical Turk a few months ago. I have taken 90 HITS and made 3.10 so far. Most of the HITS were worth .01 but only took me about five seconds to do. I usually log-on while I am waiting for class to start.

Obviously this isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. It would be pretty hard to make above minimum wage by working on this site. There are good things about working on MTurk which make the site noteworthy, though. Here are a few:

• It's run by a trustworthy company (Amazon)
• There are always HITS available
• You only take the HITS that you want to do
• The tasks are generally easy
• The minimum pay-out is low ($10)
• Most of the HITS don't have any special requirements
  

For these reasons I think Amazon Mechanical Turk is worth looking into. This is especially good for someone who isn't trying to be a web entrepreneur, such as a stay-at-home mom or a college student without a car on campus.