# Any MechTurk users here?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 18, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332 "2006-05-18T23:12:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/1 "2006-05-18T23:12:12Z")
My friend just told me about Mechanical Turk the other day, and since I was already a member of Amazon I decided to give it a try. I did a few of the easy survey questions and then moved on to a 22-minute transcription (which was worth $3.50) It’s a challenge but after a while it flowed much more naturally, and I got it done in half the allotted time.
Does anyone else use this service?
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### Author:  [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/2 "2006-05-19T02:18:54Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#):
>
> My friend just told me about Mechanical Turk the other day, and since I was already a member of Amazon I decided to give it a try.
> Does anyone else use this service?
Not yet but there will undoubtably be some soon. First time I’ve heard of it/
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### Author:  [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2006, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/3 "2006-05-19T03:41:35Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#):
>
> My friend just told me about Mechanical Turk the other day, and since I was already a member of Amazon I decided to give it a try. I did a few of the easy survey questions and then moved on to a 22-minute transcription (which was worth $3.50) It’s a challenge but after a while it flowed much more naturally, and I got it done in half the allotted time.
>
> Does anyone else use this service?
I used it awhile back but I haven’t been back recently. There wasn’t much work to be done, so I sort of got bored and forgot about it.
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### Author:  [@Mr.Slant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Slant)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/4 "2006-05-19T13:31:25Z")
Used it last night. For an hour.
Made about… 37 cents, if I did everything right.
Considering the transcription service.
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2006, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/5 "2006-07-03T14:10:45Z")
I hope this thread isn’t too old to be resurrected…
I read about mturk about three weeks ago in a computer magazine and signed up; I only made a couple of dollars in the first couple of weeks, but my balance rocketed in the last week; I’m now up to $52.26.
My secrets (not secret any more, obviously):
-Unless you’re an experienced professional typist forget transcription of podcasts; it will take you at least five hours to transcribe a one-hour recording (because of all the rewinding).
-Look out for big batches of HITs that are going for 3 cents (or 2 or 1 even) - some of these can be performed really quickly with just a glance - for example, there was a huge batch of ‘color normalization’ tasks last week; look at a picture/product description and pick a radio button that best describes the colour.
When I got into the swing of it, I could do ten or more of these per minute (10 x 2c x 60mins)= $12 per hour (actually, knock off 20%, because some were inexplicably rejected - I guess someone else thought ‘bone’ was best classified as white or beige, rather than my selection of ivory).
-Click the ‘automatically accept next HIT’ checkbox - this saves a few seconds of decision/loading, and prevents all that wasted time when someone else takes the HIT while you’e thinking about it.
-Don’t spend ages puzzling over a HIT, or researching it on Google; just skip/return it and move on to the next one, which will probably be easier.
The only problem that now faces me is that I have an Amazon Gift Certificate balance that I am having trouble using (because I live in the UK, but the credit is on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) - the US site) - I can’t use it to buy ebooks or software downloads (not permitted); I have to buy tangible goods; shipping to the UK on these is expensive and I will be hit with import charges for anything totalling more than $18.
So… if any doper of good standing wishes they could spend their existing PayPal balance at Amazon, I believe I have a solution (in which case, please email me privately to sort out the logistics).
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-mechturk-users-here/357332/6 "2006-07-03T14:15:47Z")
Oops… I thought this thread was in IMHO or MPSIMS… sorry.