General facts about Clickworker

Founded in 2005 in Germany, the proof of concept was completed successfully in 2006. In 2008 Clickworker expanded its attempts to subdivide major contracts into micro tasks. These micro tasks where to be provided to Clickworker via the crowdsourcing platform and paid (http://www.clickworker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Onepager_clickworker_EN2015.pdf).

During the start-up period in 2010 the company was supported with the investment sum of 3.5 million Euros from Klaus Wecken, High-Tech Gründerfond, KfW Bank, and SeedCapital Dortmund.

Clickworker places tasks to purchasers/contractors in the following sectors:

• Texts & translations
• Categorization & tagging
• Web investigation

The corporate presentation gives a very good overview on the founding, business model, offered services, etc.

The Clickworker process

1. In the first step the contractor registers on clickworker.com and completes his profile. After that the contractor first has to qualify for further tasks. This works with the help of trainings.
   The purchaser creates small tasks on his own via a website interface. For larger orders the Clickworker Consulting is involved.
2. New tasks are then shown on the webscreen (not App) as soon as the user has completed the qualifications (depending on the given profile and skills).
   When a task is chosen, it is described in great detail.
   New tasks are not sent out via email.
   The collected data are then checked by the operator of the platform for usability.
3. After the quality test of the completed tasks the contractor can apply for payment, either via credit transfer (10 Euro minimum) or PayPal account (5 Euro minimum).
4. There is no information on how the data are transferred to the purchaser. It is assumed that this is done via the data exchange API.

Screenshots of the app and desktop website

The Clickworker app is only available for the storage of data from POI. Other tasks cannot be carried out with it. Unfortunately, the Clickworker app could not be tested as the normal Clickworker login did not work.

 

Clickworker data usage range and spreading

The platform started in 2009 with about 800 Clickworkers. In 2010 it had already grown to 50K. The platform speaks of 700K Clickworkers worldwide. Upon login the number of about 644K registered Clickworkers is given and mostly just under 3000 are online at any given time.

On the website it says that there are Clickworkers in 136 countries (30 languages). This seems exaggerated as the majority of Clickworkers is probably from Europe.

Clickworker user journey „basic qualification“

1. Entering the Clickworker platform.
2. Before carrying out tasks a basic qualification is to be completed (or specific project qualification).
3. According to the instructions a basic qualification is to be completed:
   1. Two clozes have to be filled in.
   2. Multiple choice questions on spelling and punctuation.
   3. A sample text of 150-250 words on a preset topic.
4. After completing the tasks the result is shown and the qualification is finished.

Clickworker strengths and weaknesses

Clickworker strengths

• The level of knowledge on specific tasks of the Clickworkers is determined by a qualification test. Thereby the quality of the tasks is widely guaranteed.
• Professional representation of the service towards the purchaser.
• REST-based web interface for integration of customer relation system.

Clickworker weaknesses

• There is no App for the service, the website is not mobile-optimized/responsive either.
• The monetarization per contract or part contract is very low, Blog posts on Clickworker talk of 3 Euros per hour max.
• The recommendation bonus is only paid when the recruited has earned at least 10 Euros. This period of time can take very long so the recommendation seems senseless.

Personal evaluation of Clickworker

The service has grown rapidly in the last years according to the number of users. Yet the present growth seems to be restrained as there are about 700K users but only about 5k are active on the platform. Currently, the company advertises two fulltime and one part-time position.

The fact that the qualification test only works on Internet Explorer and that it is very slow is very negative. Additionally, the tasks for the qualification are to be completed within 1:30 minutes. This leads to stress if there are investigation tasks.

At long last the payment is low to very low in contrast to the expenditure of time.

 

 

Have you already tried Clickworker? Let us know about your experience in the comments.