Iamelgringo's first big project using Mechanical Turk
iamelgringo.blogspot.com
iamelgringo.blogspot.com
I suppose it gives people an outlet for the remarkably common desire to help others. The pricing must function primarily for signalling the difficulty of the task.
It's a very surprising and interesting phenomenon to me.
Yes, it's an online game! A game that, unlike most games, actually means something to other people!
If I had a cent for every minute that mankind has spent mindlessly playing Tetris or Windows Solitare, I'd be rich. Mechanical Turk is an instantiation of that principle.
The money that's exchanged serves as a social signal from the world that your thumb-twiddling is inherently valuable. It's like Clay Shirky's essay on why micropayments don't work, only in reverse. Micropayments don't work because even a tiny payment has big psychological consequences: It sets off our decision-making circuits ("should I really pay for this?") and our reciprocity circuits ("I paid for this, and it didn't make me happy, so you still owe me!"). The result is that we feel a micropayment as a consequential cost, even when the amount involved is tiny. Apply this in reverse and you get the Turk: Give someone a penny for a task and they feel rewarded, even though the reward is tiny.
this post shares some info from my studies
http://www.floozyspeak.com/blog/archives/2008/08/valley_of_t...
Who are these people doing the work? I turned my mom, a Stanford PHD grad onto it for a project of her's and now she does hits for fun. Sometimes it's not always about the money.
Be clear on what you want them to do.
pay them decently, not 1cent, maybe more like 5 cents or more
and test it out, see what kinds of data ya get back, tweak, and change it up
Most turks aren't going to be BS ya but some will, in the end however you only pay for what you feel is quality, but if you deny folks over and over and the reason you're getting crap data is not them its because your HIT is too vague and you pay crap, well you'll get a rep for being lame on turk and more crap data will follow.
It doesn't cost much to get a taste of turk, go for it, you'll be surprised at the result.
transcription of audio interviews, paid 8 bucks
help me brainstorm a problem while I was flying from city to city for work, they did a good job on that one
validate a hunch we had at the office on some language in a research assignment, basically quick proof, get a taste on whether or not it was connecting with them
many times ive used it to get what i call fuel before a meeting, get a quick read on folks on brand or research aspects of something
i don't use turk in the traditional sense, i see it as a personal army ready to process whatever you got, a survey np, help you think outloud np, research when you cant, np, turk is pretty cool, but it all depends on what you want to get out of it
I guess I hadn't realized reddit had gotten so bad.
It will also post here until you are through negotiating. http://www.greedypeople.com/index.php?m=account_offer_made&#...
As a deal is negotiated the public page changes so you can see whats going on.