Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

If you live in a country where $1/hr is a typical wage for working hard, you might want to consider a virtual job. One helps spammers, the other saves poor little rich kids from the tedious aspects of WOW:

The practice known as gold-farming, where a player attempts acquire gold, equipment or tradable skills, usually by actions like killing monsters, is growing rapidly according to researchers at Manchester University.

They say the industry, which is largely based in China, although also includes Romanians, Indonesians and Mexicans, currently employs about 400,000 young people who earn an average of £80 per month.

Typically the large-scale gold farms, which have been termed "virtual sweatshops" provide meals and accommodation and the farmers work 12-hour shifts with only a short break. The businesses are run 24-hours every day all year round. The market earns hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

This isn't so cool, but I'd do it if it saved me from starvation:

...an army of low-waged India CAPTCHA breakers human CAPTCHA solvers officially in the business of “data processing” while earning a mere $2 for solving a thousand CAPTCHA’s

Labels: virtual jobs