What is Digg?93 Comments
- kblowers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This isn't supposed to replace your job, just the work you do at your job....
- RadicalBender, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5OK, seriously though. I found this last night and worked for a few hours on it. It's remarkably easy and time-wasting, but, hey, free money.
1) This isn't a scam. It's already been documented, but you can easily transfer your earned money into an Amazon gift certificate or directly to your bank account if you sign up for that.
2) Amazon designed this as a way for humans to perform seemingly-trivial tasks that computer AIs suck at and, in exchange, you get a small micropayment. They've developed an API and will sell the service to others.
3) Yes, it's kind of a waste of time and, yes, it's not a terrible amount of money, but spend an evening with it and you can buy a new CD or a couple of used ones. It's up to you whether the time investment/money reward is worth it or not. For me, since I already waste a lot of time and could use some extra Amazon money, it works for me.
4) The site is far from perfect. It keeps feeding me the same ones I've skipped over and over. I've already complained to Amazon about this. Also, the site seems to be hosed at the moment, but it has its moments of lucidity.
5) You don't have to live in the cities to work on them! I mean, seriously, you either see the Burger King, Washington Mutual or Save-On Drug Store in the pictures or you don't. It's not rocket surgery. Yes, half the time, the automated system seems to post pictures of empty fields, but select none of the above and you'll still get paid.
6) The picture system was designed as part of Amazon's new Yellow Pages system they're working on. They sent trucks around major cities with camera rigs to take several pictures per block. Tie that with GPS and you get instant pictures to attach to Yellow Page listings. Now, obviously, it's not perfect, so that's why they're paying people to find the right pictures.
That's all I can think of. I was hoping against hope that no one would discover this, but, oh well, cat's out of the bag now. - gambl0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2.03 * 12 per minute (when the site is performing better than it is right now) * 3 minutes a day * 365 days a year = $394
So you can pay for all the Christmas presents you have to buy each year by spending three minutes a day identifying companies in photos. Its a cool idea if you can stick with it every day (and Amazon keeps the program going) - Brockeim, on 03/10/2008, -0/+2You can also buy Slim Fast on Amazon (my 'romantic' review of it below)
http://www.brockeim.com/wordpress/2007/06/28/slim- ... - ddufour, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2this isn't a scam. You do a job, they tell you how much you will get paid, then they pay you. If you don't want to do it...don't.
- phantom_mullet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Dude! It's just like pops telling me to go pick up sticks in the yard for a nickel a stick! Schweet!
- bepo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not just no, but hell no. 3 cents to pick the best picture of a building? If you do one a minute you are working for $1.80/hr. The highest paying one requires product research and pays a whopping $0.75.
- BBSCI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2At 3 cent to 75 cent you'll have to complete a few hundred tasks/hour to earn minimum wage.
- _HAM_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2BAH!
I was getting used to the interface and accepted a random HIT, then I returned it so someone else coudl do it.
This has a negative impacted on your 'QUALIFICATIONS.'
Now I'm not even qualified to describe a cigarette lighter.
I suck at this game. Can someone powerlevel me. - dotcomlarry, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's so lame, and yet, I can't stop doing it! AAAAHHHHH!!!
- _HAM_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"is it jst me or are almost all of these containing *none of the above*? I've done like three so far and none of them have actually contained the business."
Yeah alot of them are, and aren't. As far as I can tell someone drove around with a camera out thier window and took pictures on some fixed interval. I am guessing they had it linked with GPS as all the pictures are usually the correct street and city, and usually within 50+/- of the correct address.
That or there was an earlier stage of the sorting process that people went through and sorted pictures by address.
Anyway, the business is usually very close to the pictures they show you. The thing to do is scroll down first and scan the images. If you can see the business or a visible address then hit accept. And then re scan the pcitures to isolate it. Otherwise skip it.
But always scan it. Becuase they will show you the same group but are looking for a different business, and it becomes a game of memory. You'll start to remember which businesses are in which groups. - po84, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There is an API for software developers to post their own tasks on the site and pay at their own rates. There is a ton of potential for paying humans to be subroutines that goes beyond the banal tasks Amazon currently has posted.
What about improving web accessibility for people with visual impairments by creating summaries of images?
What about labeling patterns in visualizations of protein data? - thmitch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There doesn't seem to any way to know the reason for rejections. Like when the address is an office in an office building is the correct answer the entrance to the building or none of the above?
- just1nux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1funny parody of mturk.com at http://www.mtruk.com
- RobCowie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Great - US only. The rest of the World is also capable of human thought! Thanks Amazon
- Mark_H, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1https://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/ssop/index.html/104-0665108-9891929?is-secure=true&&awscbctx=&awscbid=urn%3Aaws%3Asid%3A027Y0TCSPRG5XHFYJSR2&awscredential=&awsstrict=false&wa=wsignin1.0&wctx=&wreply=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mturk.com%3A80%2Fmturk%2Fendsignin&wtrealm=urn%3Aaws%3Asid%3A027Y0TCSPRG5XHFYJSR2&awssig=laOjINzT0bhaOpepj%2B8XaUpHInI%3D
It's a real amazon link with that mechanical turk logo in the upper left. Doesn't look like a scam to me. - AdamCo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you look up the IP address in a whois database you get:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=207.171.163.60&email=on - SillyMamma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mturk.amazon.com goes to the mturk.com page
- monkeypecker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I dunno about it being a scam I mean it *is* amazon and it goes into your amazon account which you can cash out into your checking pretty easily. I just spent 90 minutes IDing buildings on Miami Beach which was easy cause I lived there for 20 years. I made ~$9.00. Not bad for sitting here listening to music looking at pictures of South Beach.
- spelchek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sweet
- Unkel_Slam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These all look like "drive by" photos. They mount a couple of cameras in a car with GPS and drive while taking automated pictures. Then link it up with a GIS.
Someone, (google?) is probably creating a directory of brick and mortar businesses, and wants the storefront pictures to go along with it. Then you can use it (on your PDA, mobile phone, laptop) to find the place. - woden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I really don't understand why everyone is so uptight about the low pay for these projects. Essentially Amazon is offering a contract of a few cents an item for as many or as few items someone wants to do. No one is being coerced into participation in this scheme. If the pay's too low, just don't do the job. Market forces being what they are, one of three things will happen:
1) someone else will do the job, because the marginal benefit of the pay for that person will be greater than the marginal cost of the time and talent used
2) no one will do the job, and Amazon will pay more because the marginal benefit of getting the job done will still outweigh the marginal cost of the pay increase
3) Amazon will decide that no one wants to do the job at that price, and that it is not worth raising the pay, and deletes the contract.
In any of those cases, I fail to see that there's any great harm befalling either individuals or society. In the first two cases, someone makes a few bucks in his or her spare time, and in the third case (most unlikely), a minor site update at Amazon doesn't get done.
In other words, it seems like an interesting way of getting some fiddly little jobs done on an ad hoc basis, and good luck to 'em. - wilborne2, on 11/14/2009, -0/+1You should try Microworkers, it's a popular alternative to mturk! -
http://microworkers.com/?Id=e8d4a29f - ozwald, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"There are labour laws for a reason and once the feds hear about this, they'll shut it down."
I think you should think about what you're saying before you say it. The Feds won't shut this down because nobody is forcing you to do it. It's volunteer work for a small sum of money. Why is that concept so hard? - wilborne2, on 11/14/2009, -0/+1
http://microworkers.com/?Id=e8d4a29f
- sohlemac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wouldn't mind doing some of this crap during commercial breaks while I'm vegging out in front of the teevee in the evening.
- odsae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Who's taking these godawful pictures? I keep hitting, none of the above.
- mkagro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11) It's not a scam
2) international users can work on hits. The only part limited to the US is posting of work. - Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1why are people complaining about this? nobody is forcing your hand in doing this stuff. Yeah, you don't get much money, but if you mess around with it (after the site gets back up), you might be able to make some cash. I'm not going to do the math or anything, but you could probably at least pay for a World of Warcraft subcription with it if you just select some pictures for a few hours a month
- realnebby, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The reason it looks like a scan is due to the way the domain is registered not that amount they are paying.
For those who are saying they should be paying min wage that's just silly, if they were going to pay that much they would hire college students to do it. They are trying to get some our brains cycles that aren't being used while we watch TV. - Zeuser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1HELL NO!
While the idea is good, the pay is stupid! Even the sheer time spent doing the admin stuff isn't worth the ridiculous amounts.
While some people may think... "hey, free money!", think about it... 60 cents for doing research? Are you ***** kidding me? And 5 bucks in 4 hours is ridiculous.
Don't jump onto this stuff. This is just another company using a fancy new system to outsource jobs. Rather than hire people, or even contract out jobs, Amazon is trying to get dirt cheap labour out of the poor fools.
Think about it carefully: You do some work, you get paid some dismal amount, no benefits and if you make enough money from this you still have to report it as income and pay taxes.
Meanwhile you've just cost somebody their job. Why would should amazon hire people to do work for them when they can get poor fools to do the same tasks?
There are labour laws for a reason and once the feds hear about this, they'll shut it down. - RadicalBender, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Oh, and for the time being, Amazon is manually verifying the accuracy of people's listings, so that's why it's taking so long for people's Total Earned amounts to increase. It was flying last night when fewer people were using the system. They're probably just overloaded with work right now. It does update eventually though. I'm up to around $14.
- HiddenPeanuts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1has anyone gotten any task approved yet? I'm wondering how strenuous the process is.
- skidooer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Someone, (google?) is probably creating a directory of brick and mortar businesses, and wants the storefront pictures to go along with it."
Or, maybe it's because a9 maps (Amazon's take on Google maps) has street level photos? ;) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Scam? Perhaps you should get a firmer grip on the concept of how the Internet works, kiddos. This site is hosted on Amazon's servers. Only Amazon has access to put any sites on their servers.
It's entirely their doing, and perfectly legit. - kuru225, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Finally i get paid for sitting here at work doing nothing
.......ahh wait
i get paid to sit here and do nothing anyways - landis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0why are people whining about this again? Digg is filled with the biggest crybabies I swear. "I digged this 40 years ago" "This is stupid"
You are stupid - zodiacal, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0digg effect
- Dgen_X, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0everything BUT the "HITs" load quickly and correctly...
- CaptainObvious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm writing an article on Mechanical Turk. If you've used it and are willing to discuss it, would you drop me a note at erica@mindspring.com? I'm looking for people who did the 75cent writeups as well as people who did the 3cent ones, people whose work was accepted and people whose writeups were rejected. Thanks.
- steveoa3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think I have earned 5 bucks in 4 hours, would be more if site was faster.....
So I guess those surf the net Friday's cuz we have no boss just got more interesting. - blhack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0they seem to have load balanced a little.....could fire up some hping and find out for sure....but no.
:) - panoptican, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think it's pretty brilliant. I've always wanted someone to pay me three pennies for performing a task.
- sandoz25, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://turkers.proboards80.com/
Forums for Turkers - Wilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It was having problems last night, but now it's timing out repeatedly.
- steveoa3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I just did 3 of them, if approved I will make $1.20, took and hour. I now know a lot about auto chrome exhaust tips ! I think I will quit my day job and do this instead !
- nonchallant0819, on 03/28/2008, -0/+0This is a great story... found this one through http://www.google.com
___________________________________
http://www.TopNotchCarpentry.com - heavygravity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah I'd like to give it a shot too, but it's b0rked at the moment.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You don't need a computer, just a beat up truk. No Mturk, but Mtruk
http://www.mtruk.com - DoraLives, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's borked, from the looks of things. Slashdigged, diggdotted, slagblotted, or whatever you want to call it, but it's not a happy camper on their server side right this minute. "Your request was not completed successfully."
-
Show 51 - 93 of 93 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is