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Is there something that I'm missing about Scribie that makes it good? $10 per audio hour seems insanely bad 
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May 3, 2014 01:44
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Is there something that I'm missing about Scribie that makes it good? $10 per audio hour seems insanely bad They're offering to pay $10 for someone to transcribe an hour of audio? Yeah, there's nothing you're missing there. There are more than a few places willing to pay slave-labor prices for freelancers and rely on the fact that a lot of freelancers may not know what the going industry rate is. I tend to whinge and complain when I have to do work for $60 an audio hour. (Jesus loving Christ, to get to their "work for us" page you have to click directly from the page that shows they're charging customers $90 per audio hour to the one where they offer to pay you $10 to do it. gently caress these assholes right in the ear.) kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 01:55 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 01:53
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Looking around, their test files are actually real files from customers. Someone was taking their test for Scribie, got told their file had already been submitted and they had to pick another.
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May 3, 2014 01:55
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kazmeyer posted:They're offering to pay $10 for someone to transcribe an hour of audio? Yeah, there's nothing you're missing there. There are more than a few places willing to pay slave-labor prices for freelancers and rely on the fact that a lot of freelancers may not know what the going industry rate is. I tend to whinge and complain when I have to do work for $60 an audio hour. I was looking around to see if there's any dedicated watchdog sites for freelancers, because there really should be. Looking up reviews for various transcription sites on the web gets basically a bunch of scattered hits, and always makes me wish there was a dedicated aggregate site, one that starts putting more pressure on companies like this. I know it's wishful thinking, but, at the same time, it seems like it'd be an incredibly useful tool for people who aren't aware of, say, this thread. As has been said before, there's a lot of people who will fall for poo poo like this, and thus the companies keep doing it, but it seems like there has to at least be a way to put a dent in their flow of jilted contractors. Pipe dreams aside: 
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May 3, 2014 02:21
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An Old Boot posted:I was looking around to see if there's any dedicated watchdog sites for freelancers, because there really should be. Looking up reviews for various transcription sites on the web gets basically a bunch of scattered hits, and always makes me wish there was a dedicated aggregate site, one that starts putting more pressure on companies like this. I know it's wishful thinking, but, at the same time, it seems like it'd be an incredibly useful tool for people who aren't aware of, say, this thread. This sounded like such a good idea that I went ahead and did it: http://www.freelancewatchdog.com/ On the off chance that this catches on in any way, I can turn it into a real database-driven rating and review site, but forums seem good enough to start with. I don't know enough about all the sites, so this thing is dead in the water unless some of you feel like contributing. I am currently writing for Blogmutt and Constant Content, so I started those off. If someone wants to help me flesh out more of the topics, send me a message. Centripetal Horse fucked around with this message at 20:41 on May 3, 2014 |
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May 3, 2014 20:39
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Centripetal Horse posted:This sounded like such a good idea that I went ahead and did it: http://www.freelancewatchdog.com/ This is good and I hope it takes off. I shared it with a FB freelance writers group, largely people from WA, so you'll get a couple members from that. They also suggest a general section for education and scam recognition techniques, if you want to add something like that.
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May 4, 2014 01:51
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Nighthand posted:This is good and I hope it takes off. I shared it with a FB freelance writers group, largely people from WA, so you'll get a couple members from that. That is a good idea, I will add that.
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May 4, 2014 02:06
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Sweet. I'd probably also recommend a "general" forum for each freelance category, so people can talk about other sites, offer general tips, etc. I registered, and I'll swing by sometime in the next few days to post a few things. Focus Forward is another starting transcription company you might want to add; I'm not sure how many people here use them, but they're another place where starting transcribers can cut their teeth.
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May 4, 2014 02:34
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kazmeyer posted:Sweet. I'd probably also recommend a "general" forum for each freelance category, so people can talk about other sites, offer general tips, etc. I registered, and I'll swing by sometime in the next few days to post a few things. Awesome, I appreciate the support. I think this site is actually a very good idea, but I don't have the time or the knowledge to do it all by myself. I will add Focus Forward and general subforums.
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May 4, 2014 03:15
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Daily Transcription has the Iron Chef test video up now. Just for fun I'm checking it out, and man, I wish I'd have waited a few more days to do my test. Audio quality's a load better on this, the stuttering isn't nearly as bad as unintelligible mush-mouthed muttering and stuttering of the dudes in the Full Throttle video, and this test video is only 7 minutes long.
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May 4, 2014 04:17
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Oh yeah, the audio on Iron Chef is definitely better, but the full throttle was a better test because it seems like people will balk at bad audio after that, like they didn't expect it would ever happen. Also for the freelancers website, if you're making a note about Rev.com, please note that they've dropped their bottom payout for newbies to about 45 cents a minute now. The lowest I can see at Revver status is 48 cents a minute. Their audio is not evaluated by staff before it goes live. But they do pay out automatically, and they have both editors in house as well as a peer review system in place.
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May 4, 2014 05:24
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Shima Honnou posted:Daily Transcription has the Iron Chef test video up now. Just for fun I'm checking it out, and man, I wish I'd have waited a few more days to do my test. Audio quality's a load better on this, the stuttering isn't nearly as bad as unintelligible mush-mouthed muttering and stuttering of the dudes in the Full Throttle video, and this test video is only 7 minutes long. I'm gonna miss those two guys barely audible above car noise, it's like the end of an era. Also I checked out your forum Centripetal Horse, nice start.
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May 4, 2014 06:19
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AuntBuck posted:I'm gonna miss those two guys barely audible above car noise, it's like the end of an era. Also I checked out your forum Centripetal Horse, nice start. Thank you. I plan to spend as much time on it as I can. Thanks for the post. I'm going to move it to a Scribie subforum in the main area. Leaving the Hall of Shame open for posts was actually a mistake. I plan to move companies there manually after they accumulate enough bad votes. Everything I've read about Scribie tells me that you're right though. They deserve to be in the Hall of Shame. Thank you for the information on rev.com, Slightly Used Cake. I will add them to the forums as well.
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May 4, 2014 06:39
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Anyone know how Blogmutt verification works? I barely ever use social media stuff so I don't have much to go on for them.
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May 4, 2014 07:10
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I still do a small bit of work for Focus Forward. They don't pay a lot, but I'd definitely recommend them for transcribing newbs since they're easy to sign up with and straightforward to work for. Their test file is nice and clear, and they recently updated their payment system so it's all automatic. The only real complaint I've got is that pretty much everything that's not a rush job has the same pay rate, but you can get a surprising variety in quality sometimes. I hate the focus groups with a passion. (thankfully they don't send me too many anymore, though - maybe it's cause I only ask for small amounts of time now, so I only get an occasional short IDI. Or maybe it's because they realized I'm good with accents and medical terms in IDIs, but focus groups turn my work into a disgusting mess)
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May 4, 2014 08:19
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Say what you want about Focus Forward's rates or clients, but scheduling, assignment confirmation, and now invoicing all being handled by web apps instead of just E-mail makes working with them hassle-free. I started with them and don't regret it.
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May 4, 2014 08:40
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Yeah, Focus Forward always seemed pretty decent, but I never really actually worked for them. Early on I applied there, but I screwed up something from the style guide and got turned down (and back then, it was one mistake = you will never ever work for us). A couple of years later I reapplied to fill out my schedule and got in, but simultaneously got hired on with my current favorite client, and their pay was just too good for me to stick with FF at their standard rates so I don't think I ever did a piece of work for them. FF + Daily Transcripts would be a good way for starting transcribers to keep themselves busy, learn to juggle multiple clients, and build up some good experience while (eventually) transitioning toward higher-end clients.
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May 4, 2014 10:32
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What kind of money can you end up making in transcription?
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May 4, 2014 13:15
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Per-minute rates start out in the .60 range, which (if you average 15 minutes of tape per hour, a good rule of thumb for starting transcribers) works out to about $9 per hour of actual work. Industry standard is closer to $1.00 per minute, and you can probably expect to move up to 18-20 minutes per hour once you get the hang of it. My all-time per-minute record is $7 per minute for an extremely specific and specialized job. Clients that pay per-hour (meaning hour of actual work, not hour of tape) tend to start in the $12-15 range and can reach $25 and up for specialized or rush work. Some clients pay per transcript page, usually starting around $1-$1.50, but these can be tricky because the shady ones will use small fonts and reduced margins to cram as much onto a single page as possible to pay you less. My last per-page client paid $1.50, and on average it worked out to something near $1.25 per minute with her formatting. Of the three pay scales, I prefer per-hour. Per-minute rates never really compensate you properly for hard audio or multiple speakers, and per-page rates drop off if there's a lot of dead air or off-topic chatter. (But they can be a goldmine with multiple speakers.) Per-hour clients pay you according to how time-consuming the work was to complete. kazmeyer fucked around with this message at 14:40 on May 4, 2014 |
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May 4, 2014 14:36
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FYI: There's like 800 3 star blog posts on Textbroker right now for anyone who needs it.
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May 4, 2014 16:08
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How does the Zerys category selection work? Is there no way to select an entire subcategory at once? I'm gonna be doing a lot of clicking if there isn't.
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May 5, 2014 18:30
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:How does the Zerys category selection work? Is there no way to select an entire subcategory at once? I'm gonna be doing a lot of clicking if there isn't. You're going to be doing a lot of clicking.
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May 5, 2014 19:21
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What other transcription companies hire outside of the US? I worked with Daily Transcription last year but stopped after three assignments because at the time, I thought it wasn't for me and money wasn't as much of an issue back then. I've emailed them asking to be put back on the active transcribers list but haven't received any replies. Obviously I am now sort of kicking myself for letting this fall by the wayside because other than DD what other similar outfits are there that hire Canadians? I've checked Focus Forward and I believe they are US only.
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May 5, 2014 20:49
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I'm finally starting to sink some serious effort into my freelance writing. I just started a cool new part time job, but being PT work, my budget now has about a $500/mo-ish deficit (or, as I like to think of it, $25 per weekday) that I'd like to try to fill solely through freelancing (with a mix of mill writing, a slow accumulation of ebook writing, and a mix of whatever else I can dig up). Anyway, I have a question about rewriting articles... When it comes to rewriting stuff for Constant Content, how dramatically should I be altering my original works? I assume quite a bit, but I'd love some pointers. Is it enough to change wording, or do I dramatically need to change structure? I want to maximize my return on time/effort investment, but I definitely don't want to get in trouble and lose one of my possible sources of income.
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May 5, 2014 21:56
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The more you change it the better off you are. Google article spinners to see what the absolute low-effort level is. Changing out words for synonyms has the issue that Google has a dictionary of synonyms and swapped phrases, and will actually parse content in a sort of general way, where any phrase could be replaced with any other phrase in one of those synonym lists. It's how they catch and penalize the most obvious article spinners. Spinners get more sophisticated, but so does Google's detection. Google of course is the regulator of all of it because everyone cares about the uniqueness of their content for SEO purposes. When I rewrite something I generally go paragraph by paragraph and write something new from scratch, keeping the same meaning. For some pieces I'll do more major organizational work to lay out the content differently. Particularly for top 10 lists and such, I'll re-order the items and usually swap a couple in and out, so it's not a direct copy of a list elsewhere online.
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May 6, 2014 08:30
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Zerys is so fickle. My first approval was 5 stars bumping up my overall to 4.5 and showing a bunch more jobs. My second approval just came in at 4 stars and they're all gone 
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May 6, 2014 21:14
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Attention transcribers who have been at this for at least six months: How many of you would be available for overnight turnaround projects at $1.25/minute? The workflow would be as follows--
• You confirm the request and download the video and transcribe it according to our style. • You send it back to us by 7:00 a.m. the next day. PM me if you're interested.
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May 7, 2014 21:07
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Wish I could take that job, Luigi, but I'm still waiting just to get started. Maybe down the line. Out of curiosity, does anyone know how long DT usually takes to process someone's test? I haven't heard back from them about it.
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May 8, 2014 04:26
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PM a name and I can look into it for you.
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May 8, 2014 04:57
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I seem to be failing completely at Constant Content. I have ~30 articles approved but only one sale. Maybe my voice just sucks. I'm interested in transcription, but I am wondering how fast a typist you need to be to have a shot at success. I only recently taught myself touch typing. I got Mavis Beacon and started playing around at Typeracer. I've only been at it a few weeks, and my lifetime average at Typeracer is 42.5 words per minute after 200 races. My average over the last ten races is 57 words per minute. How fast should I get before considering taking a run at transcription? There's pretty much nothing going on at http://www.freelancewatchdog.com/ I don't have any resources to promote it, but and I only have personal experience with a couple of the companies I've listed there. If someone wants to help flesh out some of the reviews and how-tos, that'd be great. I can't offer anything at the moment, but you're free to plug your blog or business in your posts.
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May 8, 2014 11:16
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That's probably where most transcribers start out, around 40-50 wpm. It's not so much that you need to be fast; transcribing files regularly will make you a faster typist before you even know it. Really if you think you can stand doing the work, take the plunge and check it out. Maybe Nighthand could add your site to the OP? I'd add my two cents about Focus Forward, but it's been years since I've done work for them.
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May 8, 2014 11:48
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AuntBuck posted:Maybe Nighthand could add your site to the OP? I'd add my two cents about Focus Forward, but it's been years since I've done work for them. Done and done. I also plan to write up little blurbs about the writing sites I've used, when I have a spare hour or so to do it.
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May 8, 2014 12:23
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AuntBuck posted:That's probably where most transcribers start out, around 40-50 wpm. It's not so much that you need to be fast; transcribing files regularly will make you a faster typist before you even know it. Really if you think you can stand doing the work, take the plunge and check it out. Thanks, I guess I'll do a few practice runs on some Youtube videos or something then take a swing at the transcribing companies. Nighthand posted:Done and done. I also plan to write up little blurbs about the writing sites I've used, when I have a spare hour or so to do it. Oh, very cool. Thanks for the link, and I'll look forward to seeing your reviews and whatnot show up on the site. I'm afraid it doesn't offer much at the moment, but I am hoping that will change. If anyone wants me to add a site, or even an entire category, send me a message here or through Freelance Watchdog. I am open to any suggestions or help you folks want to offer. Centripetal Horse fucked around with this message at 14:55 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 14:51
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Centripetal Horse posted:Thanks, I guess I'll do a few practice runs on some Youtube videos or something then take a swing at the transcribing companies. A suggestion, if you want to bring in more traffic I would suggest using the top level domain name to link to a blog. Do reviews of new freelance stuff, tips, tricks, and opportunities. You could have people write content there but include the forums as a sub domain on the site. Basically snag them with your blog content but keep them engaged on the forums.
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May 8, 2014 15:12
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As a sometimes-freelance writer myself, it might be fascinating to post a few writing gigs on these sites to hire freelancers to populate freelancewatchdog.com. Or it might just generate a bunch of SEO-optimized paragraphs. Since this site a resource I can imagine drawing on one of these days I'd put the first $20 in a pot if anyone else thinks the idea has merit.
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May 8, 2014 15:28
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Nitrousoxide posted:A suggestion, if you want to bring in more traffic I would suggest using the top level domain name to link to a blog. Do reviews of new freelance stuff, tips, tricks, and opportunities. You could have people write content there but include the forums as a sub domain on the site. In fact, I meant to include this very idea in my last post. Thank you for reminding me. I will write some articles as soon as I can. If someone else would like to contribute, that would be great. Again, I'm out of work and can't pay for content at the moment, but I'd be glad to let people plug their services or include affiliate links or something. Mark Kidd posted:As a sometimes-freelance writer myself, it might be fascinating to post a few writing gigs on these sites to hire freelancers to populate freelancewatchdog.com. Or it might just generate a bunch of SEO-optimized paragraphs. Yeah, I thought of doing that, but, again, money. It didn't occur to me to solicit donations because the site isn't offering much, right now. If people are willing to write articles for the site or kick in for buying articles, that would totally own. The domain and a year of hosting were already more than I had any business spending, but I really liked the idea.
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May 8, 2014 15:48
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Has anyone here made money comparable to a real job (meaning at least 1-2 grand a month) from blogs? I'm assuming to reach that level you must have an insane amount of unique visitors every month, maybe a six figure number?
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May 8, 2014 15:59
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quote:It didn't occur to me to solicit donations because the site isn't offering much, right now. If people are willing to write articles for the site or kick in for buying articles, that would totally own. The domain and a year of hosting were already more than I had any business spending, but I really liked the idea. I can't contribute any time or writing to the idea for the forseeable future, but I wonder if a small crowdsource campaign couldn't raise $2,000 or $3,000 from people like me in order to pay freelancers a fair wage to help build out your site. They'd be writing from their own experiences so I bet you could get a good value. Someone has to have the desire, time, and management skills to do that. I won't assume that just because you were willing to get the ball rolling that you want to run a campaign!
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May 8, 2014 19:13
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Mark Kidd posted:I can't contribute any time or writing to the idea for the forseeable future, but I wonder if a small crowdsource campaign couldn't raise $2,000 or $3,000 from people like me in order to pay freelancers a fair wage to help build out your site. They'd be writing from their own experiences so I bet you could get a good value. Given that this is a huge deal all over the country, and in other countries, besides (I think there's a Canadian freelancer who's actually trying to start an organizing campaign for exactly this reason, I wish i could remember his name), it doesn't seem like it'd take much to get some traction with people outside of SA. Starting a Tumblr (as obnoxious as that sounds), and a Facebook page, wouldn't be a bad place to start. Mostly just informative blurb content and news on both of those/tracking site updates/etc, giving some mission statements and posting links to new articles in a weekly digest wouldn't be a bad idea. Might not bring in millions, but it'd test the waters, and give some idea of what could be crowdsourced, funds-wise. There's also freelance web designers who might very well be thrilled to add their expertise into making the site look all nice, and I'd be happy to pitch in some graphic design work if it's needed. EDIT: Actually, if there's a way of at least drumming up an accurate timeline on what could be accomplished when, as well as how much it would realistically cost if contributors are actually getting paid, that'd go a long way towards proving that the site is serious, rather than just a nice idea. Maybe set up an 'action plan' thread on freelancewatchdog itself, so that we're not clogging up this one? EDIT 2: Found the union site. Tim Kreider is the guy I'm thinking of that I thought was partly responsible for starting it, I just heard about his thoughts on it via Jian Gomeshi's interview with him. There's another Freelancer Union page, as well, but it looks like it's hit a slew of problems, so I don't know how good they'll be about providing resources. Old Boot fucked around with this message at 21:19 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 21:01
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This blog post lists a bunch of forums related to transcription. I think two or three of my current transcribers came from Transcription Haven.
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May 8, 2014 21:29
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