The loss of Jim Gray is Amazon's gain

Last weekend we learned of the disappearance of Jim Gray, a well respected database architect for Microsoft.  The news was taken pretty hard around the blogosphere.  We learned that the Coast Guard called off the search on Thursday.

I am not sure who took the satellite imagery but satellite imagery was uploaded to Amazon's Mechanical Turk for it's member to analyze.  This was/is an absolutely great idea.  Let the community that cares poor over the imagery and help in the search.

My wife and I spent and hour on Saturday going through about a hundred or so images...we flagged about a dozen or so as needs further review.  I spent another half an hour going through another few dozen last night.

But each time I went I also looked at some of the other paying Turks.  Then I got to wondering how much of Amazon's generousity of hosting and using Mechanical Turk was for the moral good and how much of it was a easy way to get some easy viral marketing of their system again.  Cause let's be honest Mechanical Turk hasn't been talked about much since it came out a couple of years ago.  But since they started this Mechanical Turk links are all I see on everyone's blog.

I know I probably sound morbid in bringing this up, but my curiosity got the better of me and I want to know how much of this is marketing and how much of it is pure heart felt generosity.

I don't think any less of Amazon, I actually have more respect for them for stepping up to the plate and helping out.  But I am sure at the end of the day their return for helping out was worth all the trouble.  But in the end maybe, just maybe the real good will be we find Jim alive and well on adrift boat out at sea.

What are your thoughts?