Making Money Online: Part 1

Got a little spare time on your hands? Looking to make a little extra money? There's no need to leave your chair; with some work and a couple hours a day, you could even be making a living using nothing but the internet. In this article, we will explore several possible sources of work and income coming from online companies, such writing article, or doing simple work not fit for automation by computers.

1) Amazon Mechanical Turk

http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

The Mechanical Turk was a mechanical chess-playing machine of the late 1700s to 1800s, which was supposedly able to automatically play games of chess against human opponents. It was touted as an automation, but was in fact controlled by a human operator sitting inside the contraption. In a similar way, this is how the Amazon Mechanical Turk operates.

Having set up an Amazon account, one can easily begin. The Amazon Mechanical Turk requires users to complete Human Intelligence Tasks, or HITs, most of which are submitted by various independent employers. Having satisfactorily completed these tasks, the employer would pay the users a certain amount of money, generally ranging from $0.01 to $5 and above. The major source of HITs on the site is of podcast transcriptions, where a user would take an audio file and transcribe it into a script-like text document. This generally earns the user around $2-3 for a 5-10 minute piece of audio. There are also many random, one-off HITs, such as finding a certain product for sale on the internet or writing an article about a certain product. The payment for these HITs is generally quite low, but with enough quantity, can make a difference.

The money earned goes into your account balance, which can be used to directly purchase items on Amazon, or transferred to your bank account.

2) Programming

http://www.rentacoder.com

The world of computer is wholly based on one thing: code. It is this that allows every system in the world to function, and it is this that makes up the World Wide Web, and forms the core and foundations of every piece of software and even hardware that is present in the world. It is easy to see that demand for such an important product would be high. With ample skills at programming, namely powerful and widely used programming languages such as PHP, C/C++, Visual Basic, Java, etc, one can easily earn a large amount of money doing odd programming jobs.

There are hundreds, even possibly thousands, of such tasks for avid users to do on Rent-A-Coder. First, one sets up an account. Then, by looking through the various Bid Requests, one can determine if the task listed is possible for them to complete. He or she can then bid an amount of money on the Request, such that their bid would become their payment if they win the job and the task is satisfactorily completed. Of course, most of the simpler jobs would only pay around $5-10, but the more time-consuming and professional level tasks, such as constructing a web site or creating a complex computer program, would net a programmer from $50 to several hundred to several thousands of dollars. With a good amount of experience in web or PC programming, it is definitely not terribly difficult to earn a large amount of money through coding on this website.

3) Online Publishing

http://www.associatedcontent.com

There are numerous media companies operating online that allowing writers to publish articles, paying them an amount of money for their work. This type of publishing might be preferable to conventional magazines or publishers due to its high volume capacity and ease of use, requiring a simple online submission, whereas a paper based publishers might require mail and more complex steps for submission. They, however, do pay more per article, but have a much higher quality standard.

Associated Content is one of these publishers, paying users from $3-20 per article accepted and published. Associated Content requires that writers create an account on their website, at the same time linking a Paypal account to their Associated Content account. Payment for articles will be deposited in the user's Paypal account. Writers can write articles on almost any topic possible, with the exception of fiction or poetry if the writer wishes payment, but any other opinion or fact-based article is perfectly fine. Even if writing is not submitted for payment, it still helps the writer in that it allows them to establish a portfolio of published writings online, possibly aiding the writer in the future if he or she decides to pursue a job as a writer for a newspaper or magazine. Submitting an article is very simple, requiring the user to simply copy the writing over to an edit box, and also deciding whether the Associated Content would have sole, exclusive rights to the article. A slightly higher amount would be paid for exclusive rights. After submission, writers generally waits several business days, usually around five, for news on their article's acceptance, and the amount of money Associated Content would agree to pay the writer. Then, simply accept and confirm to receive payment!

Next time, we will look into the more randomized ways to earn money or other rewards online, such as through surveys and other areas.