CloudCrowd (www.CloudCrowd.com) is a new outsourcing, work at home agency that is taking a unique approach to freelance work. They provide their workers with small tasks, that are manageable in a short time frame and therefore easy to fit into almost any schedule, and they pay you the following day for the work you’ve completed.
Companies provide CloudCrowd with projects requiring a variety of services that range from language translation to writing and editing to online research, and more. CloudCrowd then takes these projects and breaks them into smaller, easier to manage tasks. They then list these tasks on their job pages.
When a member of CloudCrowd has time to work – say when your child is down for a nap – they simply sign on to their Facebook account and access their CloudCrowd application, looking for tasks they can complete in they time they have available. These tasks pay anywhere from $.01 to $14.95, depending on the length of time and expertise needed to complete the task.
All work that is completed by 5 pm Pacific Time will be paid by midnight the next day. In order to be paid, however, you must have a working PayPal account.
Is CloudCrowd a Scam?
On the contrary, actually. CloudCrowd is a respected crowdsourcing center that has been reviewed and praised by magazines such as BusinessWeek and Entrepreneur.
They respond to two different needs within the industry right now. First, companies that need to keep overhead down can do so by outsourcing major projects. Second, people who need work now can earn money by completing these projects for CloudCrowd on their own schedule.
CloudCrowd understands that certain tasks must be completed by humans – not computers – in order to be done well. So they have created an independent workforce of over 50,000 people and counting to do just that.
How You Can Be Successful with CloudCrowd
First, CloudCrowd rates its workers on a Credibility scale of 1-100. As a new employee, you are given a rating of 30 and you cannot exceed 50 until you have been an active employee for longer than one month. After the first month, your rating can go all the way to 100.
To raise your Credibility score, you must successfully complete your tasks in the correct way. This means following the instructions perfectly and providing the employer with the correct work they required. If you do the job incorrectly because you did not follow the instructions, or the work you provided was considered wrong or bad, it will lower your Credibility rating.
CloudCrowd also allows you to “Skip” a task after you’ve chosen it if you realize that you don’t know the answer or can’t complete it the way the employer needs. Choosing to Skip a task will not negatively affect your Credibility rating, but doing a task and failing it will. In addition, if you fail the task you are given, you will not be paid for it.
Also, CloudCrowd has certain tasks that anyone can do – like researching things online – or tasks that you must have “Credentials” to do. To get a Credential on CloudCrowd you must pass an online exam in that area. If you fail that exam, you will not be allowed to take it again, so make sure you are ready before you attempt it.
Overall, CloudCrowd is a great opportunity for those looking to fit some extra work into a busy schedule, or those who don’t have a full time job right and for whom every little bit helps.
They do seem to have some admins that are working on the problem of lame corrections / rejections which is a top ranking problem area on their support forum. Based on what I have read there. So maybe that will change and maybe it will not.
That aside,
My question to the other commenters / reviewers here is,
Well Then.
If CloudCrowd isn't good (relative to various cloud-based services) then what is? what is a good cloud-based service? any thoughts at all on this?
It also seems that you need to have a really high score to do anything and some of the tasks are impossible.
The pay is pretty much worthless but, apart from that, if they decide that one article isn't good enough then they will remove points and they won't always pay what you have already earned.
I have also been writing for a long time. I was first published when I was 14 years old (that's about 17 years ago). I write for several well-established websites.
While I am happy to have constructive criticism regarding my work, I did not see the problem with the work I did for Cloud Crowd.
I have discovered that they have made some changes and am going to give them one more chance. Although, when I only have a score of 23, this isn't going to be easy.
Now, considering my clients never reject my work - ever, ever, ever - to have all the articles I wrote for Cloud Crowd rejected for reasons that were not correct was beyond disgusting.
I wouldn't touch Cloud Crowd if they were the last content farm on the planet. Awful place. Awful people.
I would also guess, with the editing tests, they are using your editing for clients' work,even after they have told you it's not good enough. They're just not paying the writer for it as your work was supposedly 'rejected'.