By "really good money", I mean $100 a day. I've been here just 6 months, but to me it's this simple. 1) You have to able to type. Perhaps not a great typist, but if you can't confidently type 75 wpm, you are severely hamstringed ( come on, 40 years ago very proficient secretaries were typing that much on on manual typewriters.) 2) You have to be willing to sit on your butt for several hours performing menial typing tasks. Look, the HITs vary, but there's no way around this. 3) You've got to be be willing to to risk mass rejections to some extent. Pretty simple, huh? Ok, simple doesn't mean easy. Me? Since I fit none of those attributes, I guess I am destined to be an "also ran" here. However, everyone can make some money. This is just my observation. Anyone is free to tell me what a dumbass I am.
Nothing wrong with that! I'm with you! I look at it like this... right now, with the economy being what it is, it's so hard to find work anywhere, I'm just grateful to have work to do at all. When I came across Mturk, I was in a real desperate position of needing money. Although, before, I would have laughed at the pay, I was so grateful to have a way to make anything, I didn't care how long it took. I realized for every person who thinks the pay is horrible, there is probably someone out there who needs the money badly enough to consider it a blessing. I guess it's all about perspective.
I agree. Pennies add up to dollars. I'm on social security and this money pays for the extras I could not afford otherwise. I get to stay at home, no money spent on gas or clothes. Also if its a bad day health wise, I just take a nap.
So what if you can't type 75wpm, or can't sit for hours doing transcriptions? I would love to do that, but I just can't seem to get the hang of those. Will i be able to make decent money to pay my bills? And yes $50 to $100/day would be just awesome, even if it takes me 10 hours to do it. Beats sleeping in the streets and not having internet or electricity. I just started turking about 3 weeks ago, and have been averaging $10/week
Follow the daily greatest hits thread, get as many qualifications as you can. Give transcription a shot. You say you can't sit hours doing transcription, but then you say you don't mind sitting for ten hours a day to get the money, which one is it?
To play Devil's Advocate, transcription requires something that some of us can't dedicate - uninterrupted time. I did do transcription successfully when my daughter was younger, years ago, but I finally had to give it up. The deadline aspect was too stressful, and if something came up and I had to go AFK for an unspecified period of time, then I'd end up having to return a partially-completed transcription or beg the requesters for more time. Now, my daughter's in school, and I would have a window of time, but I help take care of my elderly grandmother. If she really needs help with something, I have to just walk away from what I'm doing, and again, worry about running into deadlines. So, while someone might have 10 hours of time to turk, that doesn't mean 10 hours in one sitting. The risk of not finishing the transcription just isn't worth the reward. I found I'm better off working on things that have much shorter time requirements, so that if I have to AFK, I almost never abandon them. The worst that happens is the HITs vanish by the time I get back and I have to move on to other HITs. But I haven't wasted a large chunk of time working on something I'll never be able to finish.
Not all transcription hits require a lot of concentrated time. The crowdsurf and redwood transcriptions take me less than 2-3 minutes to do, so they would fit into your requirement of shorter time at the keyboard. The crowdsurf ones usually have a 15 minute timer, so even if something does happen you can usually step away and step back. And some of the speechink ones take less than 15 minutes to do as well.
Exactly, I've done transcription work for three different requesters and none of them have taken longer than a few minutes. Generally, the lengthy transcript work has quite a long timer.
Thank you all for your feedback. And yes, i probably didn't word it correctly when I was talking about transcription and working 10 hours. The reason I am not doing the lengthy transcriptions is that I don't have the ear for it. I am working the Ignite emails addresses and name and address hits, and also Claritrans 5, 10, and 15 second transcripts when I find them. For some reason I can't do the ones for Crowdsurf, even though I qualified for claritrans, and they won't let me re-take their qualification. (not whining or complaining, just letting you know ahead of time ). I am starting to go through the daily great hits, so hopefully that'll help me get somewhere. Happy turking everyone.
My issue with transcription isn't my typing speed, it's the quality of the recordings. I have wasted a nice amount of time just trying to figure out what the heck somebody is saying in the HITs! LoL I have Express Scribe and a very good set of headphones, but none of that matters when it sounds like someone is trapped in a wind tunnel or there is a vacuum running in the background. Some of the HITs I've done with no problem, but I've resigned myself to either doing short HITs for Claritrans (and some of those suck too) or doing things for CrowdSurf. For the most part though, I am looking to do other kinds of HITs. I'm making about $40-50 a day.
You hit it right on the head! I'm SERIOUSLY looking at losing my home, and AMT may very well be the deciding factor. Although I just started and I'm not making much, even 4-5 hundred per month can tip the scales in my favor. There's nothing else, that I know of, that's legal, that I can do while on my couch and make some money.
I am a fairly new turker and for the most part I have not come across any major nightmare HITs. I used this and TO so that I could avoid based on the experience of others. I wanted to add that I have found doing HITs that have the potential for bonuses helps build quick funds. Like someone else said with the times we are living in a lot of us are out of regular day-to-day work. I don't plan on getting rich but paying a bill or two with it can't hurt and what else was I going to do with my time. Good Luck everyone!
Master's Qual doesn't mean better money. There are plenty of Requesters who require it who pay pennies. Days vary. Sometimes the earnings are awesome and sometimes they suck.
Master’s Qual may not mean better paying HITS, but it does mean you have a bigger selection to choose from. There are days I walk away from mTurk wanting to work but disgusted at the general selection of HITs for non-Masters. I value my time, and I won’t give it away just for the sake of making a few pennies from the scraps. So, if I am willing to work more and do some of those Masters HITS but can’t, I might not make better money but I could certainly make more money. HITs Submitted 102364 - ... Approved 101936 - ... Rejected 417 Turking since 2008 - Not a Master - Not an Amazon Serf either
Do you have Masters? A lot of the Masters that I've seen on the forum do a bunch of batches. It seems to me that if you want to be a master you need to do batches and surveys because most of the transaction tasks seem to have their own quals for their own levels of proficiency
I do transcriptions only, I prefer video, and I still only do about 20-30$ a day. And you get burned out FAST
I would be happy getting Masters just to get rid of the CAPTCHA's. At 69k submitted now, I've entered more than 2,760 of those damn things (plus more that didn't take) if it's based on every 25 HITs.