How Do I Become An Mturk Worker?
It's easy, just sign up. You'll be asked for some basic info like every other account you have ever created online, as well as being asked to set up an amazon payments account so you can receive you cash. Once signing up you can immediately start working. Amazon refers to the jobs as HITs (which stands for Human Intelligence Tasks) and you can click on them for an explanation. If you see one you like you simply click on it to read an explanation of the task, and accept it and follow instructions to begin working.
Some types of HITs require certain criteria associated with your account. If a HIT is unavailable you will not be able to view it, however you can click on "why?" to receive an explanation as to why you are denied access to it. Some HITs require you to maintain your approval rate above a certain percentage, while others require short certification tests or profile reviews before you can begin working on them. In that case you can click on "request certification" and follow the instructions given.
What Sort of Tasks Will I be Asked To Do?
There are a huge amount of different HITs you might find at any given time on mturk, though most fall into a few categories. Some common tasks you'll see a lot of are transcribing voice mail, translating text, product reviews, and surveys. You'll also occasionally see mystery shopper type tasks like calling a business for customer service and reporting on the experience or actually going to a location and verifying advertising placement or employee product knowledge. As more businesses become aware of the possibilities of crowd sourcing you can expect to see more varied tasks popping up.
How Do I Get Paid?
You have two options for getting paid at mturk, you can have the money transferred to your bank account or get it in the form of amazon gift card credit. If you withdraw it to an account you have to transfer at least $10 and it takes a couple of days to complete. If you choose gift card credit there is only a $1 minimum and the money is applied to your account instantly.
How Much Can I Expect to Make?
Not a lot to be honest. The vast majority of available HITs pay just a few cents. Some tasks pay considerably more, but require either special skills unavailable to many people (such as foreign language transcription) or may be few and far between. Since you are competing with a thriving community of Mturkers for the choice assignments, the best jobs go fast.
However, you can easily make an extra $20 a week by spending a few minutes a couple of times a week while watching a movie or during slow periods while working other home jobs like virtual call center work. It's a great way to waste time and actually see enough return on it for an extra tank of gas at the end of the month or keeping your kindle full of fresh reading material.
You Said Something About Scams
The sad fact of the internet is there are always a few bad apples trying to spoil the bunch and take advantage of the unwary. Mturk is no exception. Fortunately, it is pretty easy for the internet savvy to spot these scams. If it looks to good, it probably is. There are a few general rules that will save you some headaches when weeding the good HITs from the bad:
- Be wary of hits that are requesting you to "test" their email system or enter a "valid email address". Generally all they really want you to do is sign up for their spam mailing lists.
- Be wary of a HIT description like "We need people to help test our signup form" or "Test our form -- must enter valid information." These sorts of HITs are just another sneaky way of getting you to sign up for services or mailing lists that you probably don't want.
- Never sign up for a service as part of completing a HIT. No one is really going to pay you $100 to try out their "free" service. All that will happen is you will be left with the headache of trying to discontinue whatever subscription you signed up for before they charge you while the person offering the HIT disappears into the aether of the internet. These sorts of HITs are a violation of Amazon's policies and can be reported to them by clicking on "Report this HIT" on the bottom right of the HIT webpage.
- Red flags should go up for HITs asking you to complete a survey that pays more than 50 cents. Generally the only legitimate exception to these surveys are those conducted on a .edu domain. Educational surveys are conducted as part of university research and may pay a couple of dollars or more, but they usually require a much larger time commitment. Some may take over an hour to complete or require multi-part commitments to follow up surveys.
- Avoid HITs that ask you to "Test our homepage", "Click on our link, stay on the page at least X seconds", or "Help test our software". These are almost always underhanded ways to attempt to install tracking software or malware onto your system. Legitimate companies are capable of testing their own websites and software, and even if they chose to farm this testing out to a crowd sourcing platform they would need to collect a significant amount of information about your system and hardware configuration for that information to mean anything.
- I know I don't have to warn folks about this but never, ever, ever, enter any of your financial or credit card information for a HIT. Requestors will never need to "verify your identity" over the course of completing a task, and these sorts of requests are against Amazon's terms of service and should be reported.
Where Can I Find More Information
The mturk community is a large one. You can just dive right in and get started without any real preparation, but if you are serious about learning more and benefiting from the trials and tribulations of those who have come before you, please check out the mturk forum. They have a very helpful community and a huge base of knowledge that can help you maximize your time and earnings.
If you have questions about my own mturk experiences, or stories to offer others please post a comment below.
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