Back to Start

More virtual work

You may have wondered why I don't write more regularly in my blog these last weeks. The reason is, that I was busy researching more into the domain of virtual working.

You may have read my articles on Amazon's mechanical turk and the virtual worker platform vWorker.com. From long years of experience, I already know that it's not enough to know the URL of a working platform. You also have to build up a workflow to be able to get the most attractive offers from each of them.

I have now extended my view into other virtual working platforms. One that I have revisited, because I have already used it some years ago as an employer, is eLance.com. It's very similar to vWorker.com but it has some restrictions for workers who are searching work on this platform. For a free eLance account you only have 10 so called "connections" per month. You must use these to post your proposals for a job. Each job will use up at least one of these connections (depending on how high the budget for the job is) and you can't apply for another job if you have used up your connections.

eLance also offers paid accounts where you can get more connections per month. I'm not sure if I really like the idea to pay upfront just for the option to apply for a job. Many employers just ignore the applications, so that your 10 connections will get used up very fast.

Another platform that I have newly found is oDesk.com. This one is a bit different because they don't guarantee that you will get paid when you apply for a job. I have to investigate further into their system but it seems that they don't use an escrow system like vWorker and eLance where the employer have to pay money beforehand into an escrow account. At least not for work that has a fixed price. But it seems that they offer to handle payments and arbitration for hourly jobs.

In the meantime I have acquired some useful knowledge on how to improve my workflow to find the best jobs on mechanical turk and vWorker, and I also have earned some money in the process. I'm thinking about writing an ebook about all these little tips and tricks that I have found in my research. This could help others to earn money on these virtual working platforms.

I'm a little reluctant to start writing, unless I know that there is a demand for it. So I have decided to write it only if I will get at least 50 requests from people who would like to read (maybe buy) such an ebook. It would be an ebook with valuable tricks on Amazon's mechanical turk, vWorker and other virtual working platforms.

If you are interested, please write to heddesheimer@gmail.com with subject "ebook virtual work" and tell me why you may be interested in such a book, what aspect would interest you most and if you would be willing to pay a small fee to download such a book.

08/16/2010 14:37:26, von Marian , 516 words, 60 views   Categories: Articles, quick tips

Leave a comment

Scut Work 2.0: Amazon Mechanical Turk

Do you think, wages can be lower than what you have experienced by outsourcing work to foreign countries? I already have written an article on outsourcing work on the internet for project work, but could you imagine that people are willing to work for just one US-cent per several minutes of their working time?

=> Read more! (Scut Work 2.0: Amazon Mechanical Turk)

07/16/2010 12:59:48, von Marian , 1760 words, 260 views   Categories: Articles, quick tips

4 comments

How to micro-pay for blog posts you like

Some of you may have seen that I have a paypal button on my blog since a while (for several years to be honest) and I already received one donation from somebody who wanted to endorse my blogging effort with a dollar. After paypal had deducted their fees, I had about 50 cents left (the thought is what counts here).

=> Read more! (How to micro-pay for blog posts you like)

07/13/2010 12:45:07, von Marian , 585 words, 120 views   Categories: Articles, quick tips

Leave a comment

Book recommendation: Outliers

Today I want to recommend another book that I have read some weeks ago. It's "Outliers" with the subtitle "The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell.

=> Read more! (Book recommendation: Outliers)

07/11/2010 13:41:03, von Marian , 518 words, 122 views   Categories: Articles, quick tips, Books

Leave a comment

The Interactive Offer (strategies that did not work for me)

Two weeks ago I tried to test a new strategy to find out if I can launch a product like a free eBook based on a strategy that is now sold on the Internet as "the interactive offer". I found their system very interesting and fortunately, their videos were free at this time (now they charge about $1000 dollar for it).

The first step seemed to work fine for me. I posted an article where I asked my readers to fill out a survey to tell me what product (like eBook/tutorial) they would like to get for free; a product that would help them in their everyday work.

Here is the link to the blog post.

And here is a link to another blog post on my other blog secondpresentation.com.

I've got some replies, indicating interest in moodle and WordPress, so I decided to do the second step. I set up another survey for a follow-up, because I needed to know what exactly the people like to have in this product. Unfortunately I haven't got any replies for this follow-up so far.

Here is the link to the follow-up blog post.

I'm not sure what I have done wrong, but I know that I would really be upset if I had paid money for this method. Fortunately I caught the videos while they were free. I still think it might be a good method to find out customer's needs very easily, but unfortunately it did not work very well in my case.

It seems that I need to continue to publish stuff that I'm interested in writing about, until I find out what people really needs.

06/17/2010 17:14:53, von Marian , 277 words, 139 views   Categories: Articles, News

Leave a comment

Free eBook survey: What would you like me to write for you?

As you may already know, I am offering tutoring and programming on the Internet. You may have seen some of my work already on my blog, on youTube or on WizIQ's virtual classroom. Here are some examples that I have already published:

Free eBook: Introduction to PHP
Free Video: Blender - first Steps
Free Video: Gimp - first Steps
Free Video: Become a Webmaster using Wordpress.com
Free Live Class: Google Calendar Demystified
Free Live Class: The Firefox Web Browser: Useful Add-Ons

Now I'm planning on writing a new eBook that I want to offer for free but I need your help with this because I want to make sure it's something that people really need and appreciate. I have prepared a simple survey that you can fill out, so that I get an Idea what's the most required topic for such an eBook. If several people request the same or a similar topic, I will prepare a tutorial eBook that you will be able to download for free.

Edit: Thanks for all who did participate in the survey. Please check out this blog post for a follow-up.

Edit: This attempt has failed so far. Thanks for all who responded to the first survey, unfortunately it did not work for the follow-up. Maybe I did something wrong. Still not sure what it was. See this updated post for more information.

06/04/2010 19:42:18, von Marian , 228 words, 226 views   Categories: Articles, News

Leave a comment

Creative Commons - Slideshare Presentation

This is a Slideshare presentation that provides a great presentation on the Creative Commons license.

05/12/2010 14:38:52, von Marian , 15 words, 95 views   Categories: Articles, News

Leave a comment

3D Design with Blender

Do you want to create amazing 3D images or animations? Then you should have a look at the new, free and open-source Blender Version 2.5.

05/09/2010 14:14:00, von Marian , 24 words, 123 views   Categories: Articles, Blender

1 comment

HTML5 class on WizIQ

Don't miss this class if you want to start learning HTML5. It's a live workshop on WizIQ on Thursday.

04/13/2010 23:11:24, von Marian , 19 words, 131 views   Categories: HTML, Articles, Live Tutorials, WizIQ

Leave a comment

Create your first free PHP website

Don't miss this WizIQ life class tomorrow:

Create Your First Free Website with PHP Support

04/04/2010 11:23:18, von Marian , 15 words, 142 views   Categories: Articles, News, Live Tutorials, WizIQ

Leave a comment