How to Use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to Generate Article Topics
What is Mechanical Turk? Mechanical Turk is a service provided by Amazon. The idea behind this service is that there are tasks best left to real people. Real people can still do some things that computers cannot. For example, if you have a directory of various images and you would like them to be keyword tagged. A computer is not going to be able to look at each image and suggest keywords that describe the content of each image. However, it's a job that would take a human only a split second. What type of task are best for Mechanical Turk? The type of task that Mechanical Turk is intended for are simple task for humans, but also task that do not require a large amount of time. Task such as: Answering specific questionsProviding simple bits of information
Providing keywords for images And most importantly for our use..... Providing a list of questions How can it be used for articles? Every article starts with a list of questions about a topic. Who, what, when, where, why and how are the most common. The problems with these questions is you must first have a topic before you can answer the questions. You also can't have just any topic. Your topic must be specific, so specific that the topic becomes an angle. You have to drill down to a microscopic level in order to make to article writing process bearable. Mechanical Turk can help you with your angle. By asking Mechanical Turk to provide you with the questions (not the answers) about a subject, you are being provided with a list of articles just waiting to be written. How about an example Just today I asked Mechanical turk for questions about outdoor grilling. A subject I like and have some knowledge about. I ask people to find 10 questions about outdoor grilling. I was not sure what the results would be, but I thought I would at least have a subject to write about for today if it worked at all. The results? I have listed the first response from the mechanical Turk, which can in about 20 minutes after I submitted the request. When grilling meat, what temperatures should they reach before removing them from the grill?
What is the best way to grill vegetables on the grill?
Which is better, propane or charcoal?
How do I smoke meats using a grill?
How do you go about hooking up a gas grill to an already existing gas line?
Which steak is best for grilling?
What should I look for in a grill?
How much should I expect to spend on a good grill?
Is it worth it to purchase a grill with a side burner?
When is the best time of year to buy a grill? If you are familiar with grilling outdoors you will recognise enough articles to last quite a while. I would imagine that you will tire of the subject before running out of ideas. What does it cost? Right about now I am pretty sure that you are thinking about the cost. You have already spent money on the course, so do you really want to spend money on ideas to right about? One of the benefits to Mechanical Turk is that you decide what to pay for the responses. The more you pay the more likely you questions will be answered, but the control is yours. What did I spend? I asked for 15 people to respond with 10 questions each. The cost I was willing to pay is.05 per list of 10 questions. Less than $1 if I get responses from 15 people. What if I get results that are unusable? A nice feature of Mechanical Turk is you must approve or reject all responses. If you ask for questions about cars, and some joker responds with 10 questions about skyscrapers. You have the control, so you can simply reject the users response. When you reject or approve a submitted answer, that also helps to rank the user for other Mechanical Turk request. In Summary If you are having problems choosing a topic or angle to write about, the solution may be easier than you thought. Amazon's Mechanical Turk can give you plenty of article writing material at a price that is as close to free as you can get. Empty the change out of your pocket and head over to Amazon to give your brand new article idea generator a try.Jason H. Crowe is a MBA graduate from William Woods University, a small business owner, and the CEO of Photography Marketing Guide. Visit http://www.photographymarketingguide.com for more photography business articles and tips. Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Use-Amazons-Mechanical-Turk-to-Generate-Arti...] How to Use Amazon's Mechanical Turk to Generate Article Topics
