Computer programs and robots have not yet eliminated the need for cheap, tedious human labor on the Internet. Want to be an e-assembly line worker? Amazon’s Mechanical Turks Program might be right up your alley.

Suppose someone wants to create a directory of all the restaurants in Tucson, and so designs a program that combs through restaurant websites and takes out their contact information. This information might be arranged in such a way that the program misses it, or the page might be made of flash-only content. This is where the Mechanical Turk comes in.

Valued employees of this virtual sweatshop perform very cheap, contract labor for people who post jobs on Amazon’s site. Believe me, it works — within an hour of joining I had earned a whole fifteen cents! If you get a good system down, this could be an easy way to make a buck, but certainly not a liveable income.

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