Mechanical Turk
March 24th, 2007 by md
This is one of the coolest things I have seen in a while. A friend recently told me about this as a way to gather feedback quickly and economically from real people.
This platform allows a researcher (say a company, a product designer, an academic, even a computer etc.) to post a question or task that requires human input and to offer the humans that complete those tasks some money for their time. In addition to being a really cool method for collecting data, it’s a nice example of the variety of options open to folks who prefer non-traditional work — allowing folks to work where they want, when they want, and how much they want. Check it out. (I thought the origin of the name Mechanical Turk was pretty funny.)
UPDATE: Today’s NYT includes a good article on the service. I agree with the “it isn’t going to pay the bills” point. I did 10 HITS last night and earned 20-cents. Here’s the article.
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