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Making Money in a Recession: Amazon Mechanical Turk

I first came across Amazon Mechanical Turk in Mashable’s 85+ Tools & Resources for Freelancers and Web Workers but got thrown off by the name and moved on (it comes from an elaborate 18th century hoax). Later, a friend recommended I check it out, describing it as a service where “people pay you to do simple tasks online.” Why not? I thought, and signed up.

It’s easy to sign up: you must have an Amazon account that’s connected to a bank account and you’re set! (Make sure to read the fine print – you are responsible for reporting any income and paying taxes yourself.) Tasks are described as “HITs” (Human Intelligence Tasks). Once you’ve completed and submitted a HIT, it goes to the task requester for approval or rejection. Only after you’ve been approved do you get paid.

It seemed to me like an ideal way to make a bit of extra cash quickly and easily. I figured I could do several of these tasks in a half hour, make a couple dollars and be on my merry way. However, though the tasks were simple, making a few dollars quickly wasn’t so simple.

Finding the email address of a math tutor in Erie, Pennsylvania only pays $0.05 and took three minutes of browsing search results. Assignments that pay more typically involve a lot of work, like writing a marketing article using provided keywords, something a freelance writer might do for twenty or more dollars but for which a Mechanical Turk worker will only receive three. And a worker often must receive approval for smaller HITs and build up a good reputation before progressing on to the higher-paying HITs.

Still, many assignments are fun and can provide mental exercise. If you’re interested in writing, it can be a helpful way to practice writing web copy using keywords (though be warned: you may be aiding scams by writing articles on miracle diet pills). If you’re a webmaster, it can be insightful navigating websites in search of contact information.

Bottom line: use Amazon Mechanical Turk as a fun way to get used to or play around on the internet and make a few extra dollars, but don’t use it as a get rich quick scheme.

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