Amazon Mechanical Turk (mturk): HIT forever

It's been a very unproductive phase this season. SharedReviews - still in hiatus, myLot - not that pulling with less friends around, the PTP, PTR and the PTP sites monotonous and not quite revenue generating - this has been one of the most unproductive and passive phases. Given the circumstances, I could only concentrate on mturk.com.  mturk is a secure and genuine online earning site powered by Amazon Web Services.

"Amazon Mechanical Turk is a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence. The Mechanical Turk service gives businesses access to a diverse, on-demand, scalable workforce and gives Workers a selection of thousands of tasks to complete whenever it's convenient.

Amazon Mechanical Turk is based on the idea that there are still many things that human beings can do much more effectively than computers, such as identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings, or researching data details. Traditionally, tasks like this have been accomplished by hiring a large temporary workforce (which is time consuming, expensive, and difficult to scale) or have gone undone."

Here, we can enroll ourselves as 'Workers' or 'Requesters' or both. As a worker we get plentiful number of HITs ( Human Intelligence Task). We can accept, complete and submit tasks ( posted by the requesters) and collect rewards for completing them.

The fact that we can get to select from innumerable HITs makes it easier and fun oriented. You are never short of tasks, never short of rewards thus. mTurk has been an oasis in this dry season. I have earned more than $100 in a short span. You can enroll yourself too and see them coming.

Payment procedure is clean and has been streamlined recently. If you are a non-US resident, you need to upload your ID proof. The authentication takes a few days. Once the documents are validated you can request for withdrawal. They charge a shipment fee of $4 for non-US countries. The check reaches you within 15 days.

mturk doesn't want you to bring in referrals or page views- something I like best about the website. It has a definitive structure that works on productivity and knowledge. What you give is what you get back.

The only thing, that mturk can upgrade on is the method of payment. Introducing Paypal - the safest online bank - things would have been easier and faster. However, having said that, I am happy with the current payment procedure. The brand Amazon never fails, I guess.

The New Sharedreviews: Professional, plush and a lot of fun!

I started writing on SharedReviews from January 2008 (if I a not wrong) and since it has been an incredible affair. In between, I have been slow, I have gone into hiatus and some other time SR had. But that was incredibly low a deterrent to keep me off the site. I have seen SR getting a facelift several times in between and every time it was a new development, beautifully done to keep up with the pace of the internet and its increasing number of proactive users, and most importantly the integrity and credibility of the writing site. It would be unfair not to mention Peter the founder member and editor of the site. He is the most decent and most approachable CEO I have ever come across. He goes out of his way to make you at ease, and I salute his endeavor and undying enthusiasm that motivate the users greatly.

SR is going through a major face and organ lift recently. The new SR looks plush, professional and grand. The users just can't login as yet. We are awaiting the day we can dive into the site and discover new things and resolve the issues that bound to come up as a part and parcel of any big metamorphosis.


My SR page here 



The new SR , "the publishing game for the writers" promises to be a  lot of fun! The homepage has the message loud and clear.

Create your contributor profile, develop your writing and feedback skills, and strategize your way through 50 different levels to unlock new abilities, collect fun rewards, and earn real cash each month.

It's challenging, fun, and like no other publishing platform you've ever seen.

A guide to earn cents online

When I started off my activities on the internet ten years back, it was more of fun and time pass and an endeavor to catch up with the fast changing world. The virtual world was an avenue that gave me an opportunity to let go and do my mind. I was proactively participating on various networking sites when I got to learn about another aspect that the virtual world has to offer. It was an avenue that opened my eyes. I never believed that we could actually earn online until I got paid for micro blogging. It was a few cents but overpowering.

How to earn online

Soon, I realized that we get to earn here through multiple tasks, micro blogging, writing articles, networking and through clicking on the adverts, some of which I liked immensely and some I didn't quite enjoy. I prioritized on the kind of tasks I would be doing here on internet. I guess, people have different priorities and different fascinations and getting to know them and sticking to those help them excel here. It worked great for me.

How to earn online

So, I decided to set up a website that would hopefully answer the queries of newbies and for people who want to earn online. This website is essentially for the aspirants who want to earn online in their free time. I will guide you through the websites and the dos and donots of online addiction.

How to earn online

Here, have a look and feel free to ask me anything that you want to know. Thanks for your readership.

Are you using the same password for different account? Then consider this.

Are you the one finds it easier to keep the same passwords for all your online accounts? Do you have the same password for your bank and important accounts? If so, its time you gotten wiser than sorry. It's not unknown now that the weak passwords can be deciphered quite easily and so are the same/ similar passwords that you tend to use for many accounts.

Hackers are trained professionals whose credibility is more than you can think of. If a hacker manages to guess or steal one of your passwords, he could get access to many of your accounts.  He could test your password at different sites, hoping that you use the same password for many or all of the different accounts you have set up.  This is much easier to do than you might think.

You are probably much more careful with your PayPal and bank passwords than you are with say your email and social networking passwords.  But, even if you are equally careful with all passwords, a site that suffers a data breach might accidentally leak one of your passwords.   So if you use the same password across many sites, you are putting yourself at unnecessary risk.

Hackers test minor variations of stolen passwords, too. Don’t forget that most hackers are good programmers, and they can easily write computer programs that try large numbers of minor variations of a password – automatically. So just adding different digits to a core password is not enough.

Courtesy: Amazon

Sharedreviews: Getting to edit the amateurish reviews is a great way to upgrade the site's credibility

I am writing in SharedReviews for more than 3 years now and there have been a lot of changes since. SR is a beautiful place for the aspiring writers. You not only get to write on a variety of topics/ topics of your choice but also can earn from it. The best part - you continue to earn revenue from the one time effort that you put in. I have even got paid during the hiatuses.

The revenue system is intricately designed and initially you might have difficulty in understanding. However, continue to do what you do the best. Keep writing and keep writing more. Add tags and get the articles SEO friendly title to generate traffic. Trust me, you would end having a decent amount transferred to your Paypal account every month.

Recently, Peter, the founder editor, has implemented another thing that I have been awaiting for long. Three years ago, I was a novice, amateur and was not skilled in the language as I am now. Obviously, I had wanted to edit the old reviews ( articles came much later when I metamorphosed into a better writer - technically and content wise). Those sounded so silly, some were way too short conveying very little about the product reviewed.

Peter has flagged the old reviews, which are short and did not manage to get much traffic due to variety of reasons. I am so glad that he did that. Right now, I am workng on the old reviews fixing, adding, correcting and making them sound better and useful.However, the fact that those were written years back, I will have to sharpen my memories while fixing some reviews. But that's OK. As long as it helps me improve the old amateurish writings, I am fine with it.

Develop business networking to drive more traffic to your blog/ website

A lot of online earning opportunities involve networking. The more successful you are in online networking the more you likely to succeed in your earning endeavor. The fact that we need more traffic to our web pages to earn more makes this even more important. 


Now how to get going with networking?

If you are already part of a social networking site, make as many new friends who are active online as you can.Visit their blogs/sites/articles, leave comments and votes.

When you join a particular site which involves interaction with other members, make as many friends you can and comment/rate their articles.

There are sites which are ideal for promotion or drawing traffic to your articles/content. Being an active member of Twitter is one I strongly recommend. You can also consider sites like Digg, and Stumbleupon.

Have a Youtube account. The videos you upload there can be embedded into your blog/site.


Facebook is a very important business tool as well. You can either open a personal page or a business page and create auto feed through RSS to auto post the article links.

While networking, remember to create an interesting profile wherever required and keep your introduction simple.

Make sure to open a verified account with Paypal if you are serious about online earning

Paypal is the fastest and safest mode of ebanking and if have decided to make a living out of internet no way you can shove off its importance. Almost all online paying sites transact through Paypal. A few others have additional privilege of Alertpay and Moneybookers. However Paypal has been consistently very good.


I had little idea about the electronic fund transfer in the first place and Paypal was a wonder banking instrument for me. After a few months on my journey on myLot, I had opened an account with Paypal. it was an unverified account to start with and I hadn't had any problem transferring dollars. However, later I upgraded my account to a verified once, since it validated my account and I was told that it made my account safer.

There have been issues with Indian account holders in between. The Reserve Bank of India has laid down some regulatory measures for tracking unsolicited money. It is something that not really made the online workers happy.

Paypal and RBI have been in the news for a few years for their internal policy matters. This year, they have yet another bomb. According to the new pact, any balance into our PayPal account must be transferred to our bank account in India within 7 days from the receipt of confirmation.

According to RBI sources, if Paypal keeps our money more than 7 days, they have to pay us interests and apply for a banking permit, hence the 7 day time to transfer our money.

Amidst such scenario, what remains of 2-5 dollars after the deduction of 50 INR, is lot of unhappiness. More than 1/3rd of my online earning is now volatile and I was hoping to devote my whole time online to make living easier!

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Inspite of this, Paypal still remains the safest mode of ebanking in India and worldwide

Open your account by clicking here.

Read article on Paypal by clicking here.