Turking For A Living

There are a legion of people out there who take surveys, undergo psychological tests, record search engine rankings and transcribe audio files for a living, taking whatever job comes up on the Mechanical Turk job list.

These people are part of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing program, a place where people are paid paltry sums to complete HITs (Human Intelligence Task) and build up a feedback rep. The work is often mind numbing, and generally pays a buck or two an hour, depending on how fast you can work and how lucky you get with the queue.

Have you ever heard of the Turkers? There's about a half million of 'em online, and every day they're turking for a living.