mTurkProjects.info

INTRODUCTION

After completing the Mechanical Olympics in the summer of 2008 utilizing workers on the Mechanical Turk website, I realized I wasn’t finished working with the Mechanical Turk workers. For pennies, it is possible to create information exchange that promotes interpretation and independent thinking among an international workforce.

This site is a home to all of my experiments with elastic workforce on mturk.com.

Happy Birthday!

In March 2009, I sent birthday greetings using the Mechanical Turk workforce.

I saved the three bucks I would have spent on a Hallmark card and used it, instead, to send three dollars worth of "Happy Birthday" messages from the Mechanical Turk workers. The truth is, I never buy cards anyhow. Still, this was a lot better than some made-up thing I would have put together in so much time - and I'm considered an "expert" at using paper, scissors, graphics and glue to create visual messages. So, I went to mturk.com, signed in as a requester, and left the following instructions for my workers:

For his birthday, I'm sending my boyfriend "Happy Birthday" emails from Mechanical Turk workers. This is super easy - here are the directions: Send him an email wishing him a happy birthday. You can adlib within the message, wishing him a good day, good luck this year, or tell him that his girlfriend loves him...you know, birthday well wishes. (The email address was inserted here). I promise that I/he will not to share your email address or use it for any purpose. One last rule - only one email per person. It's more fun if he gets a set of totally different messages. Thank you!

We woke up today and I couldn't wait to have him check his email. Playing it cool is not my best skill. Here are some of the messages he received:

"Hope you have a good time and enjoy every second of your day. And may this year be 10x better than any other year so far :) Happy Birthday"

"Happy Birth Day to you. Many Many Happy Returns Of the Day"

"Happy Birthday! I hope you have an awesome year and it is full of love and hugs and kisses and more! Enjoy yourself!"

"How lucky you are to have a girlfriend that cares som much about you that she wants people worldwide to greet you on this historical day for you. I hope this day is wonderful, I hope this year is magical. Have a teriffic Birthday."

I have to say, for the price of a card, you get a lot more fun out of seeing what people from all over the world write to your loved ones; and it's even better when they tell your boyfriend/spouse/loved ones just how great you are for sponsoring their messages. I haven't seen a card with this kind of message yet.

Questions? Email xtine