As
of November 30, 2013, this wiki is on hiatus; it will not be updated
while on hiatus.
For more information, contact:
jrc-ipts-is-NEWS@ec.europa.eu
Online work sites
for pay
(rather
than virtual volunteering sites, for no pay)
Examples and studies
Online staffing platforms where companies and individuals can hire
independent freelancers for projects that can be completed online. Because
workers are paid as contractors rather than employees, those that hire
them through such sites do not have to file forms for, nor pay payroll
taxes, and they avoid laws regarding minimum wage, overtime, and workers
compensation. Workers, though, must report their income as self-employment
income. They are also called
freelance marketplaces.
These are included on this wiki because many of the types of paid work
offered on these sites are done by online volunteers - people not being
paid - for charities, nonprofits, NGOs, etc. It's offered as a way to
further illustrate what online work - paid or unpaid - can look like.
Examples:
crowdspring
oDesk
Elance
People
Per Hour
Telesaur
Yahoo
Contributor's Network is an "open publishing platform" where anyone
can submit original articles, photos or videos on a subject of interest to
Yahoo or its partner companies. Contributors can submit original content
per the guidelines of the Yahoo Contributor's Network and, if it is
accepted, they can receive payment. Some content accepted by Yahoo ends up
on its YahooNews site, as well as various other Yahoo sites; all accepted
content is featured on the
Yahoo
Voices site. Articles tend to be around 500 words. Prospective
contributors have three online certificates they can obtain through three
separate online trainings; each training is followed by an online quiz to
access the person's understanding of the material. Contributors can, a
t
any time, browse the Network's assignment desk and "claim" an
opportunity. Many assignments offer up-front payments, typically ranging
from $2 to $25 (although some partner opportunities may pay up to $100).
Contributors can also submit content at any time, without waiting for an
official assignment. Up-front payments for accepted unsolicited content
typically range from $2 to $15. In addition to any up-front payments,
published content is also eligible for unlimited monthly performance
payments to the contributor, based on the amount of traffic it receives.
The aforementioned links are to the USA version of the network; this is
the U.K.
version of the site. The USA site says, "If you're not a
U.S. citizen or resident, you may still be able to claim certain Work for
Hire assignments that are targeted to your account based on your profile
details.
"
Microtasking
for pay
Ubiquitous human computing is the phenomenon of dis-aggregating a
task into small, component pieces and then parceling them out for people
to work on - people who can be anywhere in the world with Internet access.
Crowdsourcing is the practice of obtaining needed services,
ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of
people, and especially from an online community, rather than from
traditional employees or suppliers. The general concept is to combine the
efforts of crowds of volunteers or part-time workers, where each one could
contribute a small portion, which adds into a relatively large or
significant result. (
from
the Wikipedia entry)
Both of these practices involve
microtasks.
Microtasks can be done for no pay - by volunteers - and for pay.
These are examples and studies of microtasking initiatives where
contributors are
paid:
The
Amazon
Mechanical Turk (MTurk) enables companies, known as Requesters, to
create small tasks, known as HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), that can be
completed by anyone with Internet access. Tasks include: choosing the best
among several photographs of a store-front, writing product descriptions,
identifying performers on music CDs, etc. Workers (called Providers in
Mechanical Turk's Terms of Service, or, more colloquially, Turkers) can
then browse among existing tasks and complete them for a monetary payment
set by the Requester. Workers set their own hours and are not under any
obligation to accept any work they do not wish to do. Because workers are
paid as contractors rather than employees, requesters do not have to file
forms for, nor pay payroll taxes, and they avoid laws regarding minimum
wage, overtime, and workers compensation. Workers, though, must report
their income as self-employment income. Because HITs are typically simple,
repetitive tasks and users are paid often only a few cents to complete
them, some have criticized Mechanical Turk as a "digital sweatshop". In
addition, some requesters have taken advantage of workers by having them
do the tasks, then rejecting their submissions in order to avoid paying.
Crowdflower
enables businesses to create small tasks that can be completed by its
virtual workforce. It is similar to MTurk, but there are no details on its
web site regarding who makes up its virtual workforce, nor how a person
can become a part of this workforce.
Samasource
is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to alleviate worldwide
poverty by connecting unemployed women and youth in impoverished countries
to digital work. These workers are trained in basic computer skills and
paid a fair wage (as determined by the Fair Wage Guide) for their labor.
"Samasource’s staff also makes a point of understanding the skills native
to each region so that it can channel projects to centers best equipped to
handle them." As of April 2013, the organization had connected over 3,400
women and youth supporting an average of over three dependents each to
paid employment, thereby directly impacting 14,100 people. In 2013
Samasource launched a pilot program in northern California called
SamaUSA,[12] designed to give low-income community college students
digital skills with which they can earn a living. The model focuses on
training students to perform digital work competitively, to prepare them
for success on online work sites like oDesk and Elance (neither of which
are microtasking sites but, rather, fee-based online work sites - see
earlier on this page).