I was amazed this week to review the concept of "mechanical turks" from Amazon.com. Briefly, Amazon has created a scalable human workforce that is accessible from the web in individual units. Mostly useful for highly repetitive tasks and web based activities, it allows you to post a project and have it completed by workers from around the globe.
From someone who dabbles consulting in the area of emerging technologies, this is an exciting concept. Sure, there have been others who have attempted to match "service-based" (rather than product-based) projects with workers -- eLance being one of the first -- but no one has been as progressive as Amazon. There has been, and for the foreseeable future will be, a gap between electrons and sweat. There are just some projects that require a human interface (read: MBA word for "touch").
I'm going to give "mechanical turks" a try and I would love to hear from others who do the same. Check it out at: https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
Dan
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