What is Amazon's Mechanical Turk?

Amazon's Mechanical Turk was launched by Amazon in 2005 and is what is called a "crowdsourcing internet maketplace." Now what does that really mean? What it means is that this is a system put in place by Amazon where workers and providers of work can come together to get small and discrete tasks completed.

The system has three major components:

• Requesters
• Workers
• Tasks (HITs)

HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks) are at the core of the Amazon's Mechanical Turk system. These tasks can vary in complexity but most can be completed in a short duration of time. This system was created because there are some tasks computer can't accomplish efficiently. So, humans are used (in the best and worst sense of the word). HITs can be as simple as finding the correct phone number and zip code for a business to transcription to more complex tasks such as writing a 1,000 word article. HITs range in price from as low as no fee or $.01 to $20.00, but most hits are usually towards the lower range. HITS also have a set time to be completed. Most time limits are set with ample amounts of time to be completed.

For some HITs, requesters may require workers to qualify before taking on the HIT. This could be a qualification test or bases on the amount or rejections a work has while working on HITs. Generally, most requesters want workers who have a low rate of rejection.

Requesters are the people who need the work done. They use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to post these HITs. They also evaluate and approve or reject work.

Workers (called Providers) are the people who take the tasks on and complete them. Workers can select a single task or as many as they feel comfortable completing. Workers have the ability to search tasks by a number of methods including by monetary amount or by the number of HITS offered from a Requester.

This system is not a real way to make a living, but many people use it to augment their income and some do it just for fun. Earnings can either be transferred to a bank account or be spent on Amazon for merchandise.

After stating all of the above, I have to ask again; what is Amazon's Mechanical Turk?

Bottom line: It is a place where someone can earn a few pennies at a time doing some online odd jobs. No one will get rich working here, but if you have a few minutes that you can spend, you can earn some pocket money.