With workers from all walks of life turking for a variety of reasons, pricing a new set of HITs can be a very difficult task. If you were to post a question on the worker forum asking about fair pay, you will likely find an array of rates as varied as the workforce itself. In order to make sure you get as close as possible to a fair rate of pay, make sure you take into account the type of worker you need, how interesting your task is, and how much effort is required in completing the HIT.
On Thursday, December 8th, CrowdSource CEO Stephanie Leffler and VP of Amazon Sharon Chiarella will host the second part of Daily Crowdsource’s webinar series on the Future of Crowdsourcing. Focusing on the benefits of microtasking, Leffler and Chiarella will discuss the booming market of microtasking and the integration into existing business processes. Along with Daily Crowdsource’s Content Director Casey Armstrong, these industry leaders will be available to answer audience questions and give real-life examples of microtasking in crowdsourcing. Part two of this highly-requested webinar series is free to watch and will begin at 10am PT/1pm ET. Register now to be a part of this free educational webinar!
On Tuesday, November 15, 2011, at 11 a.m., CrowdSource’s CEO Stephanie Leffler and Amazon Mechanical Turk’s Senior BDM Heidi Bretz are hosting a free webinar on utilizing the crowd for content creation. During the hour-long discussion, these crowdsourcing professionals can help you learn to create, enhance and refine web content for your website. Discover how to create SEO-optimized category content, engaging blog posts, link-building articles and unique, purposeful product descriptions all through the help of the crowd. Do not miss your opportunity to learn from some of the industry’s leading experts. Register for this free, valuable webinar today.
From November 7-10, 2011, you can find the CrowdSource team at PubCon Las Vegas amongst a myriad of other industry leading enthusiasts. Since 2000, PubCon has served as the country’s leading new media and optimization conference for internet marketers worldwide. This year, PubCon hosts what it calls, the biggest and boldest gathering of search and social media innovators it has ever brought together. The extensive list of experts attending this year’s conference includes notable keynote speakers such as Zappos chief executive Tony Hsieh, author Malcom Gladwell, Craiglist founder Craig Newmark, and a panel featuring SEO professionals from CNN.com, Disney and the Wall Street Journal. The CrowdSource team is looking forward to the many networking and learning opportunities from PubCon 2011.
While we can provide a variety of solutions for some of the toughest business problems, one of our biggest strengths lies in our content creation capabilities. By cultivating a workforce of skilled and dedicated writers and editors, we have shaped a process that allows us to turn over high-quality content that can be tailored to fit any company’s specific needs, quickly and cost effectively. The most notable characteristics of our content creation process is the scale at which content is created, the depth of research for lengthy content pieces and the various writing styles to which our writers can adapt.
When Stephanie Leffler stumbled on Mechanical Turk in 2008, she envisioned utilizing the platform for her company’s content creation needs. However, many people questioned Mechanical Turk’s ability to return quality results for complex and thought-intensive workflows. In the beginning, most companies employed Mechanical Turk for repetitive assignments such as image moderation, product matching and categorization. Critics suggested that businesses should only leverage Mechanical Turk to complete unsophisticated, menial tasks. Today, however, we are proving these critics wrong. While we often leverage Mechanical Turk for routine tasks, we have also found ways to tap into Mechanical Turk’s extensive workforce to carve out a talented group of writers and editors who can effectively fulfill our content creation needs.
While many businesses have contributed to the crowdsourcing industry through the creation of platforms, crowdsourcing would not measure to what it is today if it was not for the talent and dedication of crowdsourcing workers. To honor the accomplishments and hard work of this skilled and determined workforce, the Daily Crowdsource, the number one site for crowdsourcing news, is hosting the International Crowdsourcing Awards. The Daily Crowdsource hopes to recognize and give back to the workers who made an important impact and helped lay a strong foundation for the industry.
Jeff Howe, a contributing writer and editor for Wired Magazine, was the first to coin the term “crowdsourcing” in a 2006 article entitled “The Rise of Crowdsourcing.” Howe had followed this ever expanding movement with great curiosity. He found that the crowd could come together to accomplish tasks and execute projects in ways that was never possible with large organizations and companies. With the crowd, things could happen faster, cheaper and at a better quality than ever thought possible.
We are continually looking for ways to improve and build a better experience for our workers. After all, the workforce is the backbone behind our entire operation. Last week we released a major update to our Scalable Workforce software for beta testing worker profiles. The new profiling feature is a clear and concise way for workers to measure their online work performance in one place.
Analyzing earnings and comparing statistics
First, profiles allow workers to analyze their earnings and compare statistics against other CrowdSource workers. This comparison creates friendly competition amongst workers. By comparing statistics, our workers are motivated to push themselves above and beyond.
Recently we worked with a client who was having trouble with a HIT posted on Amazon Mechanical Turk. We assisted in troubleshooting the HIT and decided to publicly share our findings as they are likely commonplace among HITs with the same characteristics.
Background
The client in question plan
ned to post a survey on Mechanical Turk. The survey was designed to take approximately 30 minutes and pay $5.00 per response. The client planned to launch the survey to two separate demographic groups. The first batch would be administered to college graduates and the second batch would be administered to non-college graduates. They planned to ensure the candidates matched the demographic profiles by adding a qualification test in front of the work asking about the worker’s level of education.