Reconozcámoslo: nunca está de más sacarse un dinerito extra. Ya sea para cubrir necesidades, concederse un capricho o lo que sea, a veces viene bien contar con un ingreso adicional con el que poder contar de vez en cuando. Por supuesto, el dinero no lo regalan, si no que hay que hacer algo para ganárselo. ¿Y qué mejor manera de hacerlo que a través de Internet, cómodamente desde tu casa? Con ese sentimiento funciona Amazon Mechanical Turk, una web donde podrás realizar microtrabajos para recibir micropagos.
Turk, as we will call it for short, works in the simplest way imaginable: a series of companies or users (called requesters) upload to the web some small tasks (HITs) that must be carried out. The worker users (or workers) make these orders, and when the requesters verify that it has been completed correctly, they financially remunerate the people who have taken part in the work.
Simple, right? Well, you only need an Amazon account to be part of the Turk community. The small drawback, although for others it may be insurmountable, is that the only language of the tasks is English. So while some jobs require a medium level of understanding of the language, for others it is almost essential to be a native speaker to be able to perform them satisfactorily. Another possible drawback is the way Turk pays you: through discounts in the Amazon online store. That is, the money you earn can only be spent on purchasing items. Although, seeing the huge amount of products that Amazon has for sale, that shouldn’t be a major problem. If you have a bank account from a US entity, you can also transfer the money earned to that account, but that is complicated for those of us who are not from there.
Las tareas a realizar son de todo tipo, al igual que la diferente remuneración que recibirás por realizar cada una de ellas. Unas de las más abundantes, así como las mejores pagadas y a la vez más difíciles, piden transcripciones de audio o pequeñas redacciones de un número determinado de palabras. Sin embargo, hay otras que son fácilmente realizables por casi cualquier persona: moderar imágenes, hacer publicidad de algo en Twitter o foros, contestar una serie de preguntas… Eso sí, es posible que no te dejen realizar algún tipo de tareas hasta que no termines una pequeña prueba de nivel, aunque otras tienen restricciones imposibles de salvar, como ser ciudadano estadounidense.
By personally testing the service, in approximately one hour of time, I have managed to complete 140 tasks, of which I have already been paid for 122, three rejected and 15 still pending review. In total, I have accumulated $4.23 (USD). No, it is certainly not much, but we must bear in mind that due to my level of English I have not been able to perform the best-paid tasks. But at least the next time I buy something from Amazon, I’ll have the shipping costs covered. And if I keep using Turk, maybe I’ll even get the product without putting anything out of my pocket.
Sure, Turk won’t lift anyone out of poverty, but it’s an interesting way to look at the future of “work” on the web: doing small tasks for small payoffs. We will have to keep track of this business model, because in the not too distant future it may take a leap in quality and cause the appearance of hundreds of similar communities. We will witness it, or not, directly from our monitor.