Giacomo Balli profile picture
Giacomo Balli
The Mobile Guy

Over two decades of experience at your service.
I help business owners make better decisions.

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Freelancer just acquired vWorker (my thoughts on elance, odesk and similar)

freelancer.comWhen I first started freelancing, 3 years ago, the first thing I did was to sign up for all the websites where people posted contract work they wish to outsource. Some of these where eLance, oDesk, Freelancer, GetAppsDone etc.
It didn't take long for me to realise the truth about these sites. The vast majority of the developers are very inexperienced and can therefore bid very low (also not their main job) and the people who recruit here just want something done.
I quit even looking at posting after a few months. Since then, I've had many people contacting me to "fix" a project that was commissioned on these platforms but went south due to inexperience, poor communication, low skills or scammy feelings.
I'm not saying the websites should not be used. However, only people who know what they're doing and know how to instruct a "machine-like developer".
Obviously this is my own experience and I'm convinced someone must have had positive experiences. First of all because they keep popping up and secondly because the are growing.
In fact, Freelancer.com just acquired vWorker (formerly known as RentaCoder. vWorker has over 2.5 million enterprise and professional users from around the world, who have been paid over US$139 million through the site from 1.3 million projects.
As I said I haven't been on these sites in a while and was pleased to see a big addition: Freemarket.com. This is a place where you can buy and sell virtual files, Flash web design, Web templates, Music, Graphics, Video, 3D from $2 and much more. From my point of view quality is low but you need to offer all kinds of stuff and let the clients decide.

Published: Tue, Nov 27 2012 @ 10:20:32
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