While writing his new book, Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators, author Steven Rosenbaum used Amazon Mechanical Turk to speed up his transcription process and beat a tough book deadline.
Rosenbaum (pictured) posted video and Skype interview transcription work as Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) in Amazon’s workplace. Amazon users have posted hundreds of thousands of these tasks, ranging from transcription to surveys to translation. Virtual workers accept the jobs based on a set time frame and payment.
What do you think of this 21st Century tool for writers? Rosenbaum explained in an email: “It was magical … No longer was I reading transcripts from weeks earlier, I was literally getting them back within 24 hours – which meant the tone and highlights were top of mind.”
