One of Mturk's own requesters now stands slated to serve up some competition as its own seperate site like Mturk. Crowdflower used to be a commonly seen requester on Mturk in 2012 and 2013; the requester took its jobs elsewhere and now serves as its own platform to other requesters. The company must not have had an easy time getting to this point: it has been working through an ongoing dispute in which some former workers claimed they were official employees rather than just online freelancers.
Crowdflower Tasks
Much of what Mturkers saw of Crowdflower's original tasks survives now on the Crowdflower Elite website as well as other types of sites like Neobux and InstaGC. Crowdflower's tasks have lived on those websites since it left Mturk. The tasks are designated a level in accordance with Crowdflower's unique level system. By completing a minimum number of tasks successfully, a worker can progress to better jobs at better-paying levels. At the time of this writing, there seems to have been a traditional Qualtrics survey posted on level 3, but it doesn't seem to pay the usual $6 per hour pay rate that is often sought by workers.
Dispute Settlement
Crowdflower may have been something of a test case by lawyers in California looking to classify certain types of online workers as employees. After a couple of years of Otey v. Crowdflower, it seems that the parties have finally agreed upon settlement of the case per the terms presented in September 2014. Given that the case began in 2012, it certainly may have temporarily stymied what will now be seen as Crowdflower's larger potential.
Investor Funding
Investors recently brought a fresh $12.5 million to Crowdflower per Staffing Industry's article on Crowdflower. Apparently this brings their total funding up to $28 million per that same article. That's got to help with competition against AMT.
Elite Platform
Registration for the Crowdflower Elite platform is available at their website, but workers will notice that they're currently required to sign in through Facebook before completing tasks. Requesters, be sure to take notice of the free Data for Everyone option that requires a 20% fee on top of the payment to the worker, and sharing of the data. For the Crowdflower Pro option,requester fees are partially disclosed on the website and include a monthly fee along with a less-than-20-percent fee on top of the payments to workers.
Stay tuned to see what happens after the July 22 fee increases at Amazon's Mechanical Turk.Crowdflower's Blog has been updated about once a week. The website may well be a highly relevant site like Mturk.
Much of what Mturkers saw of Crowdflower's original tasks survives now on the Crowdflower Elite website as well as other types of sites like Neobux and InstaGC. Crowdflower's tasks have lived on those websites since it left Mturk. The tasks are designated a level in accordance with Crowdflower's unique level system. By completing a minimum number of tasks successfully, a worker can progress to better jobs at better-paying levels. At the time of this writing, there seems to have been a traditional Qualtrics survey posted on level 3, but it doesn't seem to pay the usual $6 per hour pay rate that is often sought by workers.
Dispute Settlement
Crowdflower may have been something of a test case by lawyers in California looking to classify certain types of online workers as employees. After a couple of years of Otey v. Crowdflower, it seems that the parties have finally agreed upon settlement of the case per the terms presented in September 2014. Given that the case began in 2012, it certainly may have temporarily stymied what will now be seen as Crowdflower's larger potential.
Investor Funding
Investors recently brought a fresh $12.5 million to Crowdflower per Staffing Industry's article on Crowdflower. Apparently this brings their total funding up to $28 million per that same article. That's got to help with competition against AMT.
Elite Platform
Registration for the Crowdflower Elite platform is available at their website, but workers will notice that they're currently required to sign in through Facebook before completing tasks. Requesters, be sure to take notice of the free Data for Everyone option that requires a 20% fee on top of the payment to the worker, and sharing of the data. For the Crowdflower Pro option,requester fees are partially disclosed on the website and include a monthly fee along with a less-than-20-percent fee on top of the payments to workers.
Stay tuned to see what happens after the July 22 fee increases at Amazon's Mechanical Turk.Crowdflower's Blog has been updated about once a week. The website may well be a highly relevant site like Mturk.