Amazon has made it possible for anyone with an account to work for them and get paid. It is called Mechanical Turk. With this program you work on a variety of small projects and you get paid with cash (Direct Deposit) or Amazon gift cards.
Most of the work is repetitive so that you can get more HITS (jobs) done in an hour. There are some jobs that are meant to just get you to sign up for an account or to post on forums. The main client that offers the most jobs are “Amazon Requester” this is Amazon itself. Most of the tasks are simple comparisons and pay 1 or 2 cents a piece.
With some of the prices for work, the common view was that most of the work was being done by people in India or some other third world country, but the reality is that Amazon has mainly housewives and students in the USA doing the work. The motivation is different for two groups, but money is a factor.
So, how do you get started with Amazon Mechanical Turk?
1. Open an Amazon.com account if you don’t have one already.
2. Go to Mturk
3. Click the Workers sign-in and sign in with your Amazon account.
4. Go to Account Settings to fill in your Bank information. They do not seem to offer a check option.
5. Start working HITS that you want to try.
Tricks to MTurk
The more qualifications you get, the more work you can do. Most of the qualification tests is just a yes or no agreement, but some require you to do samples and real tests.
Keep your Approvals in good shape. For most, it seems a 90% is a good level. Your approval rating is influenced by rejections. In other words, do the work correctly.
Pick hits that you can do the most of in the shortest times. Many of them seem to be in 1 or 2 cent range. Watch your time, if you are trying to do this at a descent hourly rate. Mturk has time limits on all their projects, some as long as 2 days, but most 60 minutes.
Figure your hourly rate by the HIT you have done, how many you did, and how much you were paid. The hourly rate will change according to the HIT since the payout can be different.
If you want to know about a requester, then the forum is the place for you. There is information and conversations about most of the requesters.
In general, this is not the place to make $2,000 a month on unless you do it 8 to 10 hours per day, but some people do it. Think of it like a factory job where you are being paid by the piece.
Warning
MTurk seems to have problems with Internet Explorer. It works well in Mozilla.
In conclusion, if you have the patience to sit at the computers for hours a day, you can make money, but if you want some gift cards then just turk an hour a day and let it accumulate.
