Writing an MTurk blog: A look at the best ones

Sustaining an MTurk blog isn’t always easy.  Like most turkers, I suspect, my enthusiasm for MTurk ebbs and flows.  There are periods where I do a lot of turking, periods where I do just a little each day, and periods where I do no turking at all.  The reasons for this are varied.  Sometimes there are HITs on MTurk that I enjoy and pay reasonably well, so I spend more time on MTurk to exploit them.  Sometimes I am forced to spend more time on MTurk purely because I need some extra money.  Other times, I have other things happening in my life and I haven’t the time, need, or motivation to be on MTurk.

I have been looking at other blogs recently, principally ones that are written by turkers and aimed at other MTurk workers - there aren’t actually that many active ones around, it seems.  The official Amazon MTurk blog, for instance, tends to focus more on the needs of requesters and programmers, than the requirements of turkers.

Judging by some of the other MTurk blogs out there that I have managed to find, many turkers start out with the notion that they can make enough regular money off MTurk to sustain themselves for a long period of time.  Then they gradually become disillusioned if this doesn’t happen and some get angry with being poorly treated, or at the quality of some of the HITs.  Some of the most entertaining and informative writing comes from disillusioned turkers, although their blogs are often short-lived.

“Mechanical Turk Blog” was clearly motivated to write an MTurk blog in order to highlight what he saw as the scams and injustices of MTurk, of which there are many.  I think it is a continual source of disappointment to all of us that Amazon can appear unwilling, or unable, to police the posted HITs better when they are clearly aimed at gathering workers’ contact details for spamming purposes, or worse still, are aimed at collecting personal info to be used for identity theft.  These sort of HITs appear regularly on MTurk, sometimes masquerading as a “survey” or a “website test”.  Other times, turkers are being asked to perform tasks that are of questionable ethics, and/or legality.

Having made his point, “Mechanical Turk Blog” now seems to have melted back into cyberspace.

Turk Lurker’s blog has some entertaining and informative reads in it!  He has a dry sense of humor, referring to Mechanical Turk as the “Slave Yard” and giving his blog the url: “MTurkey”.  Strange that his posts suddenly stop in 2007 and then suddenly reappear in 2011, but these things happen, I guess – maybe his wife had a baby or something?

Eric Cranston wrote an interesting turker blog, but unfortunately it petered out in 2007 after 2 years of posts.

There are many blogs by people on how to make money from home which refer to MTurk in passing, but it they generally just write a single article and they often don’t give you much more information or insight than a general introduction to MTurk for beginners.

Anybody know of any more interesting MTurk blogs?

The Turkopticon Toolbar and Making Money with Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

I have raved about the Turkopticon Toolbar more than once in passing in my posts about Amazon MTurk (Mechanical Turk) but I love this device so much, I wanted to dedicate an entire blog post to it.  It really is the most wonderful aid for Mechanical Turk workers (also known as turkers) and a must for everyone trying to make money with Mechanical Turk.  As well as the Turkopticon Toolbar itself, there is also an online community of turkers associated with it, who can provide an invaluable source of information for anyone who is trying to make money online using MTurk.

How much does it cost?

The Turkopticon Toolbar costs nothing to download and install, that’s right, it’s free! 

How do I install it?*

There are two versions, one for Firefox and one for Google Chrome.  Provided you get the right version, installation is simple.  There is no version for Internet Explorer, but if you use MTurk regularly to make money online, then I would recommend that you download Firefox, just for the Turkopticon Toolbar, you can always just carry on using Internet Explorer for everyday use and click on Firefox when you use Mechanical Turk.

How does the Turkopticon Toolbar work?

Basically, Turkopticon is letting you know how other turkers have got on before with specific MTurk HIT requesters.  It does this by placing little button arrows next to the requesters when you are on the Amazon MTurk HITs page.  By clicking on the arrow, you see how previous turkers have rated that MTurk requester.  They are graded according to how quickly they pay, how fair they are at assessing HITs etc.  Turkers also write reviews in some cases.

Source:

http://turkopticon.differenceengines.com/

This means that with the Turkopticon Toolbar you can avoid the worst MTurk requesters by looking at the reviews before you do a HIT.  You can also write a review after you complete a HIT and get paid and let other turkers know how you got on with that MTurk requester.

Are there any problems associated with the Turkopticon Toolbar?

I personally have not encountered any.  The program is also very small, so I’ve not noticed it slowing my browser in any noticeable way.

I know this probably sounds like a glowing endorsement, but as far as the Turkopticon Toolbar goes, I struggle to think of any negatives.  It really is a must if you want to make money with Mechanical Turk.

Oh, I nearly forgot to give you the download link, you can get the toolbar HERE!

*UPDATE: At the time of writing, the Turkopticon Toolbar isn’t working with Firefox 5, so I have gone back to Firefox 4 in order to use it!  I’ve had similar problems with other Firefox add-ons too recently, the root cause being that Firefox rushed out version 5 only a few months after they brought out version 4 and the add-on developers haven’t had enough time to react.  Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon.  FURTHER UPDATE: THIS MATTER IS NOW RESOLVED!

More Amazon Mechanical Turk Tips

I wrote my first lot of MTurk tips for Turkers a couple of months back and received positive feedback, however I thought it would be good to do a follow up and include some of the stuff I didn’t include the first time around.  So here are some more Amazon Mechanical Turk tips for you.  They are aimed at MTurk workers, people who earn money online, and are meant to supplement my previous tips.  Depending on your level of experience with MTurk, some of them might seem pretty obvious, but I hope you can glean something of use from them.  I have actually learnt quite a bit by putting them together as it has made me think about my approach to Mech Turk and reminded me of some of the mistakes that I made early on when I didn’t know any better!  Anyway, here are my More Amazon Mechanical Turk tips.

1. It is easy to skip the qualification tests sometimes, but they can be useful.  Sometimes they open up a whole vein of good MTurk hits.  Sometimes you don’t even have to do anything other than click a button to qualify (presumably they are trying to weed out bots?)

2.  Sometimes it is worth doing lots of low paying MTurk hits just to increase your hit approval rate.  You will also sometimes need to rescue your hit approval rate when it when your hit approval rate has fallen.

3.  Your hit approval rate can be important as it determines which hits you can and can’t do.  I myself didn’t realize this at first and managed to mess up early on in my turking career and it took me what seemed like ages to recover! 

4.  Opinion varies on which browser is best, but I personally would use Firefox or Chrome.  Some of the Amazon Turk hits demand that you don’t use Internet Explorer or that you use Internet Exporer with a Chrome frame.  I have Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome all installed, just in case!

5.  If an Amazon MTurk requester rejects you and you think that they wrong to do so, contact them directly and ask them what the problem was.  Be polite but firm.  It is surprising how many non-payers will pay up after being contacted.

6.  Maintaining good communications with the good MTurk requesters never does you any harm and if you can build up a trusting relationship you can sometimes be offered more opportunities to earn money online outside of MTurk by the good MTurk requesters.

How much money do you earn online with Amazon MTurk?

How much money do you earn online with Amazon MTurk?  This is good question and a relevant one for someone who is weighing up various ideas to make money online.  In my experience Amazon Mechanical Turk is actually a relatively straightforward option for making money online, as it is free to sign up to and once you have got used to the set up of the site, you can easily find out details of what each Amazon MTurk hit (task) entails and how much money that you will earn for its completion before you click to accept it. 

If you want actual earnings figures for MTurk then I will give you an idea of how I work and how much I earn in return for completing MTurk hits.  I tend to work in stints of two to three hours per day on MTurk.  Where possible, I do hits for MTurk requesters that I have worked for before, as then I know that there is a good chance that I will be paid and I also have a rough idea when.  For those two or three hours work, I would normally expect to come away with somewhere between and $8 and $18.  There may well be MTurk workers out there who do much better than that, if so, please feel free to comment.  I think the most that I have made is $27 in a half day but that is not typical for me.

On my bad days, a lot of my time is wasted on trying to find suitable MTurk hits.  On the good days, I find hits straight away and get straight on with it.  I don’t use any programs to cheat, though I am aware that there is software out there that some people have experimented with, such as software for generating reviews, blog posts, written articles etc.   

There are people who say that they have stumbled on reasonably well paid tasks that they can complete a lot of very quickly and they’ve come away with earnings of  $200+ for a day’s work, but that has never happened to me.  I would also remind people to be wary of the very high paying hits, as many of them are scams, designed to get you to hand over personal information.

I am relatively cautious when it comes to choosing jobs, but my wife is more experimental and that means her MTurk earnings tend to be more variable.  You can sometimes find lucrative MTurk hits by looking around and trying things.  But one risk of doing a lot of completely new MTurk hits all at once is that sometimes the requester will reject all your hits, either because you didn’t understand the instructions properly and did the tasks wrong, or because you have been unlucky and got one of the dishonest Turk requesters.  This can damage your rejection stats and effect your future work, as well as waste your time.

Is Amazon MTurk slave labor?

This article was prompted by a friend who told me that she’d tried Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) after reading one of my articles.  She had done a number of hits but eventually decided that the MTurk payments were way too low and that Amazon MTurk was essentially a form of slave labor.

It is an issue that I’ve wrestled with myself, during my darker moments as an MTurk worker.  MTurk requesters effectively sidestep most labor legislation when they use MTurk,  meaning that MTurk workers, unlike people working in the “real” world, have virtually no rights.  Employers get a good deal out of MTurk potentially, as their overheads are minimal and they can effectively hire and fire at will.  Workers, on the other hand, are vulnerable to being ripped off.

Some of the MTurk requesters also offer payment rates that are effectively absurd.  Sometimes if you are like me, you look at the hit and think that they are paying you 1 cent for each task, which is already poor money, but then you read on and there are 10 of these tasks per hit.  That means that you are being offered 0.1 cent for each task.  Even if you can complete two tasks per minute, that’s still an hourly payment rate of just 12 cents!

Okay, I will shut up moaning.  But the issue is still a serious one.  At the end of the day, I use my MTurk payments to supplement other income that’s coming in and spend the money on essentially frivolous stuff such as nice coffee and audio equipment.  I feel concerned about people who are in a dire financial situation and reliant on MTurk to pay for some of their essential, day to day needs.

MTurk is fine in that context, as casual work that supplements other income, but I’d hate to see a world where all work was like MTurk and everyone was forced to scrape a living from day to day with virtually no rights or job security - a kind of weird cross between Victorian England and internet technology.  In short, I think that MTurk is great as an online earning option (which can also be fun sometimes!) but not if it’s your only effective choice!

10 Reasons Why I Hate Amazon MTurk!

Whether you like it or not, Amazon Mechanical Turk (aka MTurk) is one of the  commonest ways of earning money online at the moment.  Working from home is fine when it is going well, and awful when it is not.  This blog will give my  thoughts and ideas regarding MTurk as well as charting my progress, knowledge and experience.  (If you want to read some more of my earning money online articles, check out the links below and in the sidebar)

1.  Many of the hits on Amazon MTurk are just rubbish.  They either pay ridiculously well, because they are scams, or they are genuine jobs, but they’re paying you 10 cents/hour!

2.  It’s difficult to know who the good Amazon MTurk requesters are and who are the bad on MTurk.  You could spend hours working on there and then get ripped off.  Not only do you lose the money, but you get a bad rejection rate too!

3.  Amazon do not regulate the site enough.  That means that there are rip-off artists and scammers operating openly on MTurk.  Okay, the workers can flag bad requesters, but considering Amazon are making money from the site, you’d think they’d feel a bigger moral obligation to maintain it?

4.  When you do find an Amazon MTurk requester who offers decent jobs, pays at okay rate, pays on time, and doesn’t rip you off – they suddenly disappear, just when you’re getting used to the regular money!  You have no way of knowing if the requester will be back in a few hours, a few days, or never again!

5.  There’s lots of MTurk hits and requesters, but navigating around the Amazon Turk site can be a pain in the backside.  Why can’t you save your favorite requesters, or your favorite searches?  Have your own little My MTurk part of the site?  Wouldn’t that make it a lot easier for regular MTurk workers?

6.  There’s no effective comeback against the MTurk requesters who rip people off.  Okay, you can report them to Amazon.  But that doesn’t stop them in their tracks or get you your wages.  Eventually, I guess Amazon will ban them from the site, but by then they’ve made lots of money!

7.  It can be complicated working out what money’s where.  You have the total money earned section on your MTurk website dashboard, which is often not up to date because of late paying requesters.  Then you have the Account section of Amazon, which is often not up to date because the money takes time to be paid over from MTurk.  Then you have the money in your bank account which is always delayed by several days when it comes from the Amazon Account.

8.  MTurk can be very addictive.  There’s always a temptation to just do one more job.  The next thing you know, it’s 3am in the morning and you have to get up at 7!  Or your wife is getting fierce because you haven’t spoken to her for 2 days!

9.  You can lose all perspective with MTurk.  Before you know it, you’re ranting and raving and your day/week has been completely ruined, all because a requester has failed to pay you some measly sum like 10 cents!

10.  The number of jobs fluctuates wildly on Amazon MTurk.  One day there’s 150, 000 jobs on there, the next day there’s only 45,000.  Either there’s more jobs going than you can possibly handle, or there’s absolutely nothing on there that’s worth doing!


MTurk Links

Amazon Mechanical Turk Top Tricks and Tips

How to avoid MTurk scams

10 reasons why I love Amazon Mechanical Turk


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The Pros and Cons of Making Money with Microworkers

Other Work at Home Websites

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Work at Home Now: The No-nonsense Guide to Finding Your Perfect Home-based Job, Avoiding Scams, and Making a Great Living
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