If you’re looking for a few extra dollars a month, or if you just like to keep your mind occupied, check out Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.

Sign up for the program is easy and you can get paid in cash or in Amazon Gift Certificates (paid through an Amazon User Account).

The point of the Mechanical Turk is what they call Human Intelligence Tasks or HITS. These are small jobs that cannot be completed by a computer because they take some sort of human visual or intellectual acuity. Companies post these large jobs to Amazon, who then breaks them into tiny bite-sized pieces. Then the Workers (that’s you and me) pick and choose the bites and perform them whenever we have time. Each task takes from a few seconds to a half hour - and there are time limits said, so once you chose I job you must take some action or lose it.

The payment for the job varies by the difficulty and skill level. Some tasks require you to prove your skill before you can take them on and those pay better. Payment is from a percentage of a cent up to $20 on average. Some companies offer bonuses for good work, and through these I earned 79.00 my first two months on the Turk.

Let me say here, this isn’t a job you make a living at but it’s fun and it generates extra cash. Some tasks however are so mind-numbing that literally, you couldn’t pay me to do them. (Marking off the boundaries of roads and road signs in an endless sea of photos) Some are hard (transcribing radio shows) but some are fun (writing movie synopsis for a DVD collector company.)

There’s a wide variety of jobs on The Turk and a forum to support it. Many of the job posters are regulars but you do get the odd one off job — like the guy who’s looking for a place to buy purple sunglasses with blinking lights in the frame.

Research on the web is a popular Turk job, as is categorizing links for directories and search engines. I’ve also seen trivia writing, paid for reviews, image descriptions and so many more. If you have a head for details, there are always tasks for people to look up government contract information.

Amazon also runs two fun trivia and research question sets each week and they give a portion of the prize pot to all of the winners (hard to explain but fun to play).

What I enjoyed most about The Turk was being a part of Turk Nation. This is a posting board for people who love The Turk. They point out the deadbeat payers (sadly there are some) and they help you get answers to your questions. They also have a great sense of competition for that weekly bonus prize.

Got some free time tonight? Check out The Turk. It’s free to join (you will need an Amazon account if you don’t already have one) and it’s fun to browse around and see what HITS are posted. Once you start completing HITS, you’ll find it quite addicting. Hey, you could be playing Bejeweled all night, so why not play at The Turk and make a little cash on the side.

Do you have a favorite HIT at The Turk? Tell me about it in the comments below.

Tags: Amazon Mechanical Turk, earn cash, earn money online, work online, writing jobs

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