MobileWorks (YC S11) is a Hands-Off Mechanical Turk

The logo makes me nostalgic for my days as a BeOS user:<p><a href="http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetails/34752/128/beos_people_users_icon" rel="nofollow">http://www.iconfinder.com/icondetails/34752/128/beos_people_...</a><p><i>UPDATE: If I remember correctly, the original BeOS icons were all 32x32 pixel art. I didn't find the original in my first quick Google search, but I found the above link instead which appears to be from an open-source stock icon set based on a vectorized version of the BeOS artwork. It also happens to match the image used on the MobileWorks site. Here are some of the original icons from BeOS:</i> <a href="http://dsandler.org/entries/images/2007/beman.png" rel="nofollow">http://dsandler.org/entries/images/2007/beman.png</a> and <a href="http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/feb00/images/beos_1.l.gif" rel="nofollow">http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/feb00/images/beos_1.l.gif</a><p><i>I didn't mean to imply that MobileWorks was copying anyone (or for my off-hand comment to get voted to the top of their launch announcement discussion). Their web site may be a licensed use of this stock art, which itself is an inexact copy/interpretation of the BeOS art.</i>

We use Grasshopper for our phone-service. They do a computer-transcription of voice mail by default and they send it to you by email. If you don't like the auto-transcription from the email you can have it done by humans. And 5 min later you have a more accurate one in your inbox.<p>Which makes me think that there are a lot of services that could benefit from human intervention. I can see that you guys are starting out in a particular space but I think that the opportunity is huge!

I wish this existed in the past -- trying to figure out best practices for mturk use is almost more work than just doing the task yourself, but simplifying it for common tasks makes it a lot more useful.

Can they be given a task that requires additional research, training, or creativity?<p>Example: What if I sent you a dental xray and asked you to report cavity count and location? This would require minor training but could easily be done by anyone with a trained eye.

I didn't get the price. Care to explain? 100 tasks free, and then?

Congrats guys! This team has been studying crowdsourcing for a long time and this startup is a product of everything they have learned.

Regarding your TOS:<p>"Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on MobileWorks, Inc.'s web site for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only."<p>I see nowhere in the TOS that if I upload data and pay for some data transformation that I own the copyright to the transformed data. According to the current wording, it seems that YOU own all the output. Could you explain?<p>Also, what does the following mean: "Call us toll free at 800 100 4023 from any India phone."<p>Lastly, do you have a support <i>email</i> address? I prefer that channel, since I can archive support for future reference.<p><a href="https://sandbox.mobileworks.com/contact/message/" rel="nofollow">https://sandbox.mobileworks.com/contact/message/</a>

"Unfortunately things are a little more complicated than that."<p>When it said that, I thought it was because of <a href="http://coinnovative.com/the-mechanical-turk-experiment-how-i-made-218-an-hour-and-how-you-can-too/" rel="nofollow">http://coinnovative.com/the-mechanical-turk-experiment-how-i...</a>

Congrats Anand!<p>I've been working in the crowdsourcing field for several years now (our workers are from Vietnam), and can understand that the profit margins can be very thin for some of the more basic tasks.<p>Drop me a line if you're interested in branching out to Vietnam.

Having trouble registering here: <a href="https://sandbox.mobileworks.com/accounts/register/" rel="nofollow">https://sandbox.mobileworks.com/accounts/register/</a><p>It just ends up refreshing the page, with the form still filled in (except password fields).

I have testing this out and must say that the communications from Prayag have been very very helpful. Thanks so much for clear line of communication on and about your product.

Pricing page has no pricing.<p>Cannot commit to testing a platform that cannot commit to me a price of some sort? ... are they treating me like a crowdsourced beta tester?

Do the workers speak and write English?

Bravo, this looks like a really savvy way to handle these kinds of tasks.

Congrats Anand et al! It's gonna be fun competing...

Congrats guys! Berkeley I School &#38; CS FTW :)

This sounds awesome.