So, you ask yourself, “Where is a good place to start?” Try http://www.mturk.com. This is through the very reputable company http://www.amazon.com. If you can answer questions, follow directions, and have time to write essays or blogs from time to time, http://www.mturk.com is a great place to start. Will it replace your current income? That all depends on you….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63nZPmGMVWw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ62LTFgR-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a1mQHotWVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmdXznQA71E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tALU0us8rVs

My mturk money dropped from $145 because I bought the Sweeney Todd DVD and other stuff. But there are videojug hits again, and there are nearly 30,000 hits to choose from so I have no doubt I can get my balance up again.

That was in 1991. Nearly 20 years later, the internets became slightly freakier.

I can't imagine how Jojo would even begin his search for true love today. Facebook, Multiply, blogs -- everything is so out there and everyone is connected. Of course, friending someone who is a friend of a friend is infinitely safer than chatting up a total stranger, but I remember how Jojo literally found the strength to reach out because of his relative anonymity. The internets freed him from the bounds of friendship and his old self and left him able to reinvent and rediscover himself.

He had agonized over the then new issue of anonymity v. trust v. personal safety. He wanted to establish a connection with his new faceless stranger friends but he was aware that if he was being coy, then the other person could be concealing so much more. Oh, the juggling act of privacy and friending.

Fast forward to 2008 and we discover Crush or Flush. Chatting through text or YM, without the other person having to find out where you are. It's another social networking site that lets people discover other people through their interests and social demographics. If you like someone, you Crush them. If they like you back, they Crush you and you end up with a Mutual Crush. (Awww, high school prom, anyone?)

The important difference is that Crush or Flush comes with its own "telephone operator" to block unwanted messages. If you want to drop someone, you Flush them, and they will never know that they got flushed because they don't have your real digits. As the site promises:

If someone harasses you or causes a problem, we will block his number and that person will permanently disappear. No one every gets your e-mail address, real name, or cell phone number - they always remain private.

I guess people can always agree to be more open and truthful as the relationship develops but at least it's a safeguard against freaky people who reveal their icky quirks too early. Me, I'm a believer in facetime and long relationships where you goad the other person into showing their worst, but yes, sometimes, even I wish for an intermediary to tell the other person, No.

Ce site d'Amazon vous propose d'effectuer des tâches souvent relativement faciles et répétitives, mais qu'un robot (ou un logiciel) ne serait pas capable d'effectuer à la place d'un humain. Les mini-contrats que vous remplirez sur le site sont donc très mal payés, mais rapides à remplir.

Si vous faites le calcul vous verrez tout de même que bien souvent, l'heure de travail sur le site reste tout de même bien inférieure à un smic horaire, mais parfois cela vaut tout de même mieux que de rester devant la télévision, surtout que vous pouvez bien souvent faire les deux en même temps ! Sans compter bien sûr l'intérêt de travailler à la maison, à n'importe quelle heure.

Ensuite, il y a des HITs (les mini-jobs sur lesquels vous travaillez) qui nécessitent certaines qualifications, et qui sont automatiquement bien mieux rémunérés. Vous pourrez donc passer des tests sur le site, par exemple pour prouver que vous êtes bilingue français-anglais, pour pouvoir ensuite travailler à des traductions.

Pour finir, le gros problème de ce système, c'est que vous ne pourrez pas récupérer l'argent gagné sur votre compte en banque, à moins que vous ne disposiez d'un compte aux États-Unis... L'autre moyen de récupérer le fruit de votre travail, c'est de le convertir en chèque-cadeau valable sur amazon.com.

Au final, ce site est surtout un moyen de vous offrir facilement quelques CDs, DVDs ou comics, tout en vous faisant pratiquer un peu d'anglais... et c'est toujours ça de gagné !

Voir aussi mes articles : Améliorez votre niveau d'anglais (1) et Améliorez votre niveau d'anglais (2)

Crédits schéma : ©2005-2008 Amazon.com, Inc. or its Affiliates

I toddled off to TechieCrossing today to look for part-time tech jobs. It's easy enough to search for job opportunities by state. I bookmarked some openings using the Add to My Hotlist option onsite. I also tried looking for jobs by field using the advanced search function. I was surprised that the drop down search function offered to search for jobs for me in non-tech related fields, such as Law and Blue Collar but apparently, clicking on these options will lead me to other Crossing sites that specialize in that particular field. Very very interesting. And convenient.

I haven't finished my search yet. The site promises 138,222 openings at the moment, with 18,014 new jobs posted in the past 7 days alone. Wish me luck.

Living in an area where the transportation system is erratic at best, I am eager to try out the NY Subway System. I have always been fascinated by trains: they seem to be the most efficient and fastest way to get from one place to the other and they do not involve any exertion on my part. No traffic, no traffic lights, controlled stops, and well-lit rooms that allow uninterrupted reading.

It's the little touches like these that make me want to take public transportation.

It also makes me wonder if I would make an excellent transit authority. Looking at the job openings over at TransportationCrossing makes me think that it can be a very interesting job. I tried searching for available transportation jobs in New York using their easily navigable search engine and it turned up an opening for a Director of Logistics! In addition to five more pages of opportunities, all dedicated to transportation. Meanwhile, one interesting widget on the lower right hand corner of the TransportationCrossing website was the interactive US map which shows how many jobs are available when you drag your cursor over to the proper state. At least you can anticipate how far you have to move. California, Texas, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania have the most number of job openings, no doubt because of their size, but the market is quite promising in tiny Massachusetts as well.

Fare:

• Unlimited ride cards:
  • 1-Day Fun Pass: $7.50.
  • 7-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard: $25.
  • 30-Day Unlimited Ride MetroCard: $81.

Not having a science background, it seems a pity that I can't take advantage of the opportunities offered by Sciences Crossing. A job database specializing in science jobs, Sciences Crossing offers online profiling and job matching services to people who sign up for a small fee, although the site also offers a free trial.

Right now, the website boasts of information on openings from Kelly Scientific Resources, Manpower Professional, Genentech, Inc. and Pfizer Inc. Apparently, there have been 2,265 new jobs posted for the week, with 377 openings newly posted for the day. If only one of those openings leads to a happy worker, then good for them.

Let's see how fast I can achieve my goal.

Há também serviços para adicionar tags à fotos. Simplesmente olhe para foto e comece a escrever palavras que a descreva. É possível encontrar vários serviços deste tipo que pagam até $0.10 por grupo de quatro fotos.

Comece agora mesmo a ganhar dinheiro fácil. www.mturk.com

(em breve falo sobre os pagamentos internacionais... estou usando o sistema ainda)

What is Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services is an attempt by Amazon.com to retail out the computing and backend infrastructure that powers the seamless operation of Amazon.com. The rationale for opening up the infrastructure to developers at large including competition stems from the realization of Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon.com that ‘The biggest cost is - is lack of utilization. It dominates all other costs’. It is also an attempt to beat the Internet tech leaders Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to beat them in their game by leaping ahead and gain entrenched incumbent status in utility computing.

Presently some ten services including limitless storage(S3), on demand server instance(EC2), orchestration( SQS) are part of AWS offering. Mechanical Turk(Mturk) a marketplace for fine grained Human Intelligence Task(HIT) with built in micro payment mechanism, Flexible Payment System(FPS) are very unique and interesting AWS offerings.

Why AWS is Interesting

If you are a startup, you can get started on your idea/concept without spending upfront on infrastructure. Without worry about growing and scaling infrastructure with growth. This eliminates risks( tech investments depreciate rapidly with ever decreasing half lives!) and reduces cost of failure.

The AWS building blocks offers enormous opportunity for ‘thin layers of value addition’ on top of AWS thereby unleashing entrepreneurial creativity.

AWS is a successful use case of Service Oriented Architecture(SOA). If architecture, infrastructure, capacity building and utilization interests you, AWS is a compelling case study.

AWS is powered by a thriving community of developers and entrepreneurs. The emerging era of opensource and social media makes AWS community worth taking a closer look.

AWS Chennai Meetup

Amazon Web Services Meetup is a place for present and prospective AWS users to network and exchange notes. On the Dec 13 meeting at RailsFactory, Jinesh Varia, AWS evangilist from Amazon will outline Amazon Web Services compelling propositions. It is an opportunity to network with other startups and developers with interest in the domain. Demos and 1:1 meeting opportunities are also part of the scheduled activities.

The program is scheduled for 5:00 pm. 1:1 meeting with Jinesh to discuss your specific requirement and your AWS feedback/wishlist are possible at the venue from 2:00pm onwards. The venue(RailsFactory) is just off the Jaffarkhanpet bridge near Kasi Theater junction.
More details and registration at the AWS Chennai Wiki. Demos and AWS user experience sharing in Speed Geeking fromat - check it out!

Join the fun. Rush, (unlike AWS )capacity is limited ;)

This is not for any great worthy cause, this is not a competition, it may or may not help charity, it will not prevent global warming, you will gain no medals, no certificates but it is most definitely not a waste.

I'm contemplating adding a Amazon Mturk twist to it by creating Chennai 311pm HIT in the Mturk Human Intelligence Task market.

Update: Not in Chennai during the event? SecondLife and Avatar Voodo to the rescue! Now you can participate virtually via SecondLife, and With Avoodo Make It Real!

Purpose of this post is to do my bit of serendipity enhancement for both TipIt.to and MyFridj to explore each other. And I also want to ask Four Starters, especially Alper, how they are handling the identity verification cost involved in micro-payment service.

I'm watching and experimenting with micro-payments. The recent release of Avatar Voodo/Treepu is my hands on experimentation on SecondLife Linden dollar and Mturk as micro-payment platform.

Indeed, I was checking out WebExpo2.0 and BarCampBerlin just to check if it is feasible to pull off a mini-stunt with Avatar Voodo
Ready to Give, Get Tips?.

Balaji Sowmyanarayanan, a social entrepreuner in the area of combining handicraft with technology(ICT) for sustainable development, puts forward an interesting analogy - he likens Amazon EC2 to an open restaurant, welcoming you to its kitchen to cook your own meal! He describes what you will find within: "The 'restaurant' would provide you a well appointed regular-size 'kitchen table', and charge you by the hour - one virtual Linux box at ten cents an hour. Supplies used would be charged by consumption - storage(S3), orchestration(SQS) and bandwidth charges as per usage. You would be free to use one table for an hour to make a few cheese sandwiches. Or you could choose to simultaneously use many tables for many hours, to cook a gourmet spread to feed a sit-down dinner party.

"Why would you opt to visit a restaurant and cook your won meal, if not to avoid tipping or intimidating waitresses! Choosing the right data centre outsourcing contract and negotiating service levels are daunting tasks. They are typically prepaid and expensive. In contrast, EC2 is hardware as a service, based on no minimum, no maximum, post-paid billing.

"However, you need to beware that the small tip you save are not eroded by the charges of hiring expert master chefs.

EC2 is raw, ( and sometimes intimidating) offering. Handling it often needs extra engineering skills that not everyone possesses. A cook-at-our-kitchen restaurant is only an interesting and useful concept for gourmet experimentalists and recipe inventors, who desire to focus on recipe rather than assembling a kitchen. Likewise, EC2 attracts innovators and start-up entrepreneurs who need to focus on their idea instead of worrying about servers or scaling up, or IT managers of one-off short-term scientific or academic projects with heavy computing requirements.

"The fact is that regular hosting strategies are more attractive for regular situations. EC2 is only attractive in special circumstances, where hardware needs to be scaled to cope with spikes in demand."
Blog http://labsji.wordpress.com

Hat tip to Charu for the edits. Interestingly Indus Khaithan who gave an interesting EC2 talk at BCB4 is featured in the article. I came to know him and point him to Charu coz of his talk. So blogs and unconference talks work!

Speaking of metaphors, Avoodo - Avatar Voodo, a mashup of SecondLife with Amazon Mturk is ready for demo.
Check it out at Treepu SecondLife Sim.

Just like a voodo doll, an Avatar's activity/interaction in SL can trigger a Mturk HIT, which in-turn can effect activities in the real world. Avodoo can blur the boundary between the virtual SecondLife and the real life. Geography is indeed History once again with Avoodo - Make it Real.

Avoodo is indeed illustrated with Treepu an use case that magically teleports virtual tree saplings from SecondLife to real life. It is a mashup of SecondLife, Amazon Mturk and Project Green Hands.

Hat tip to Jeff Barr seeding the voodo metaphor!

UPDATE: Today's Amazon Web Services SecondLife Chat, the last 10 min was Avoodo and Treepu demo time! It was awesome!

Putting the money where my mouth is, I'm initiating a simple project of mashing up TiddlyWiki with Amazon S3. And indeed there is a small cash reward.

When S3+TiddlyWiki is done, the code will be reused for Mturk+TiddlyWiki. The Mturk+TiddlyWiki combo will be handy for developers and lay users of Mturk alike.

Ace Freelance coders in Chennai, Unite! Come add vibrancy to the Startup ecosystem!

BriteWorks

The BriteWorks platform enables users to create enterprise applications in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost of traditional development methods. Applications are not developed from scratch, rather they are initialised with BriteWorks, a fully functional skeletal application out of the box that has all the functions and algorithms for processing transactional, interactive applications. BriteWorks comes with a host of runtime features and all the plumbing and infrastructure for n-tier deployment, thus removing this concern completely so that developers can focus on the business domain. The promise of the long awaited industrialization of software development is here.

They want zero coding application development, and they want to be powerpoint like for application development. BriteWorks can do well than just make lukewarm presentations events. They must evangelize and engage an active developer community. It is not enough to have a nice product, you need community and engaging the community is getting easier by the day.

Then It was Vijay Pullur of from Pramati showcasing Dekoh.
Rajesh Setty of Life Beyond Code has an excellent interview with Vijay:

RS: What is the need for a product like Dekoh in the marketplace today?

Vijay: Dekoh is a Rich Internet Application and Social Media platform on the desktop. Today desktop and web applications work as silos. Look-n-Feel, installation, access and technologies used to develop these applications are very different. Dekoh bridges the gap between desktop and the web. The “Rich” in RIA refers to richness in user interface (Flash and AJAX), richness in functionality (desktop and web) and richness in availability (online and offline). Providing a seamless user experience for applications on desktop and web in both connected and disconnected mode is the goal. This is the next frontier for internet applications.

Again from the same interview...

RS: Life is going on fine without Dekoh or Apollo or Google Gears. Some people may say you have a solution waiting for a problem. Your comments?

Vijay: Think about it, people said the same about telephones! I am not saying Dekoh is comparable in proportions to that, but Dekoh offers some unique features that can dramatically improve web experience of users. Offline is only one part of the story. The bigger thing about Dekoh, is it can change the request-response model of the web. For example, today users have to manually click to go to a website and look at new information or use the service. Dekoh can help users make time on the internet more productive by pulling content on their behalf. For online services, this is a platform to provide valuable user specific information even when the user is not on their site. This is a new paradigm.

I love the open source approach. Pramati must not just participate as a starup. They can play a bigger role in such events so that they can reach out to the developers more effectively. All the above aspects did not come out well in the 6-min presentation. The much talked about tag-cloud widget in action I'm not able to see in action. Its source, documentation and gory details of its inner workings are all available. No working tag cloud in sight. May be I'm too short attention spanned!

On Web2.0 the key frontiers are desktop and API publication(Dekoh.org API, Formats page is empty now!). If it is covered in a neat way with a single opensource tool it will be a winner. When that happens, Dekoh will be an example of the social media induced paradigm shift from making money 'with' to 'Because of'.

Next on stage was InAsra Technologies presented by young and passionate( with 'will take it to completion' despite all odds, I love my India' attitude) Yogendra along with COO Rupal. InAsra offers hotel booking from real lowend( Rs 95/night) to real high end. It takes a lot to get your processes working with low-end hotels. It is a relationship business. With more than 2 years of battle hardening( as Yogendra puts it) they have got the backend and process right. Now it is time for scaling and brand building. From the website:

We are a young and vibrant company motivated by ideals, excellence and perfection, backed by tons of youthful zeal, striving to make traveling as easy as having an ice-cream (and just as delightful). We know that your time is most precious, so we keep things as simple as it can get.

Cheers to them and They Will Be Successful. Period.

Next on stage was TolMolBol presented by Amit and Nitesh. The fine features of TolMolBol are explained through a conversation style dramatization. Earlier they gave an handout to everyone in the auditorium. I couldn't help asking my designer friend Vasu from Universal Print System( who designed the proto booklet) if the handout was well designed. He suggested couple of quick repositioning to reduce the clutter and bring out the clarity.

TolMolBol is community driven local content that is mobile enabled. I saw a review of CreativeAxes who contacted individuals who participated in the proto.in event. From the review I see that proto.in works and so is TolMolBol! The About page of TolMolBol is interesting and says it all:

The People:
Anand Morzaria – The Ringmaster
Anand leads the business development and partner relationship functions for tolmolbol. He completed his masters in finance from BITS, Pilani, where he was also president of the university students' union. Some of his pastimes include trekking, experimental cooking and amateur bar-tending.

Rithesh Prasad - Ideasmith
Rithesh drives all aspects of tolmolbol's operations, data management, product design and strategy. He has 3 US patents pending and holds a B.E. (Hons) degree in computer science from BITS, Pilani. Outside of work, Rithesh enjoys spending time teaching computer skills to children and catching up on the latest blockbuster flicks.

Venkat Polana – Wizard of the Dark Arts
Venkat spearheads the technology development team of tolmolbol. An expert on the Java platform, he graduated from BITS, Pilani with a masters in finance. Apart from computers, Venkat is passionate about card games and astronomy.

Anshuman Dimri – Cool Vibes Generator
Anshuman is responsible for building the tolmolbol network of city-zens. He graduated from BITS, Pilani with double masters in general studies and software systems. In his free time, he dreams about sky-diving and that's probably the closest he would ever get to doing it.

Amit Thakral – Cool Vibes Generator
Amit guides the community as well the business development activities behind tolmolbol. He holds a bachelor in chemical engineering from BITS, Pilani. A keen dramatist and dancer, Amit is also the co-founder of the NGO, Sparsh - A Healing Touch.

So Web2.0ish: design, people focus and differentiation all ingredients of success. How well they scale and how well they engage the community are the deciding factor of their success. I Wish them success!

Next on stage was TyRoo presented by Aditya Khanna. It is an Google AdWords/AdSense like service but more targetted and localized. They used double O in their name for good omen of such successful ventures. While google is a longtail company, TyRoo is targetting the longer end of the longtail too - interesting. Mindshare is what they need and they need to do more than present their case on stage. They have to go all out and make small time bloggers and small business talk loud about their service. Step on the marketing and evangelizing gas!

Next it was Pavan Kachibhatia and Chitra presenting about Cricko - a cricket based legal betting venture. Again mobile enabled to engage the aam admi(common man) in the street. Hey we are getting into really inclusive development here. Once one use case gets established, extending it to other services becomes easy. Cricket being the passion of everyone using it as a bulldozzer to make inroads into the the minds and hearts of the common man makes a lot of sense(both socially and biz wise). Another interesting trend in the Online gaming ( like SecondLife) is creating virtual goods and a virtual currency to facilitate transactions on them. Cricko has a lot of potential to play a role in the virtual goods/virtual currency space. A mobile based micropayment for goodies not linked to Rupee will potentially change the face of economy in India. When it is ubiquitous, beggers in India will get alms in virtual cash! Interesting venture - I wish they get them self a good ethics governance adviser on the C-Suite. Otherwise they falling prey to the criminal/underworld nexus is imminent. If it were to happen it will be a tragedy of a social/inclusive development( masquerading as vice at the first look) opportunity lost.

Next on stage was RouteGuru represented by Avinash Agrawal. Maps available in developing countries is their mission. The general tone of Web2.0 presentations at proto was all about local. And Maps is the basic building block for local services. Having said that, monetizing is maps/GIS information is not obvious. Especially when giants like google can disrupt the landscape at blink. RoutGuru's approach of driving directions based on landmarks not just solves the India/developing country specific problem. There lies the proprietary component for building a business model. I recommend Amazon Web Services Mturk for sourcing data to power their RouteGuru. In the process they would have bootstrapped work at home/students Mturk workers earning extra cash with their PC and broadband connections. Trouble with Mturk is it is not already populated with workers, I'm doing something to cut the chicken and egg situation. There is literally a world to conquer for RouteGuru, profile of the people behind give me a hunch that they will ravel in the challenges. Wish them Godspeed to emerge successful.

Next on stage was Delip Andra Gaurav Bhatia of MineKey. MineKey is a content recommendation service that will recommend contextual content and deliver the recommendation through the MineKey widget. It is Silicon Valley based and VC funded and located at IIT Khargpur. It is interesting in the Web2.0 kind of way like yet another social network. Adoption and what they do with the community is the key. I wish them success before the web2.0 bubble busts. What is the exit strategy of MineKey - I am interested.

The last to go on state in the mobile segment was Deepak of Genie Interactive. Their offering is Voiee a voice based platform. He demonstrated the ease of use of the integrated voicemail use case. Simply, it is a gateway from POTS network to web. There are many uses for it. I can think of running commentary like podcasting using the mobile phone. Subscription based and ad based revenue models are possible. Tie-up with telco will be a big advantage - but that is like belling the cat. The voice comment he left in the demo is still there in the Voiee blog( through their widget). They need to go beyond fear of technical murphy and embrace the user base. Step on marketing gas!

It is a good forum to make feature requests and connect with other developers and listen to their ideas, concerns and have fun.
Today Ryan Mahoski/Drunsen Deadlight brainstormed about a audio wikipedia built based on Mturk and telephone based service 1-900-WIKIPEDIA. [ Initially it started as 1-800-WIKIPEDIA, then it evolved into 1-900-WIKIPEDIA - permium telephoney service to charge the end user] Interesting!

I requested a Mturk sandbox feature: Replicate the qualifications from the main Mturk on to the sandbox so that it is easy to test with qualifications.

TwitterLit's tag-line says, "Twittering the first lines of books so you don't have to" and further discloses: "Full Disclosure:TwitterLit is an Amazon affiliate. The links that appear in the posts/tweets point to Amazon.com, and they contain TwitterLit's affiliate ID. Sales resulting from clicks on those links will profit TwitterLit."

It is a wonderful application of the Twitter medium. Given that the opening line of any book will be interesting, it will fit withing the constraints of the 160 char limit( mostly) and there is a possibility of including Amazon Associate id in the url, etc. All well thought out and well executed( with widgets that goes in blogs!)
I will not be surprised if Debra Hamel automates the looking into the 'Search Inside' feature of Amazon.com
and posting the first line twice daily using Amazon Mturk. And further automate the choice of the books to be looked into using Mturk again and Amazon ECS service.
Wicked smart! Hat Tip to Debra!

Bonus Links:
C C Chapman of Crayon( with office in SL) has suggestions for out of the box twitter applications.