Have you heard of MTurk?

Are you Tech Savvy looking for some simple side projects utilizing your talents for money?

Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a crowdsourcing marketplace that allows Individuals and Businesses to outsource jobs to people who can perform tasks virtually. The only requirement to complete tasks and collect payment from Requesters is a computer connected to the Internet and to be at least 18 years old.

Tasks could include:

MTurk harnesses the intelligence, skills, and insights from a global workforce to streamline business. This helps solve specific internal data processing problems that require human judgment and intelligence, such as moderating content or research.

Traditionally, companies had to hire a large expensive workforce to complete these tasks. Mturk is a way to break down a manual, time-consuming project into micro-tasks called HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) to be completed by workers over the Internet.

How it works:

Requesters have several options for ensuring their HITs are completed in a high-quality manner before payment:

When a Requester approves a task, MTurk transfers funds to the account of the Worker who completed the task. In the U.S., workers can transfer earnings to their Amazon Payments account or their Amazon.com gift card balance. Outside of the U.S. funds can be transferred to Amazon.com gift cards, and in some cases, transfer earnings to bank accounts.

For technical types who want to earn money in their spare time, the MTurk website solves the problem of finding work you can do wherever and whenever you want using the skills you already possess. To make money by completing tasks with MTurk, visit worker.mturk.com.

The legend behind “Mechanical Turk”

In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen’s “Turk” was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe, confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte.

To persuade skeptical audiences, Kempelen would slide open the cabinet’s doors to reveal the intricate set of gears, cogs and springs that powered his invention. He convinced them that he had built a machine that made decisions using artificial intelligence. What they did not know was the secret behind the Mechanical Turk: a chess master cleverly concealed inside. (Source: Amazon Mechanical Turk website).