oDesk has a lot of rock solid freelancers but Elance, the frontend looks like spam site to me and you get tens of applications and half just charge you $2. I am not saying $2 means cheap labor but after deal with a couple on Elance I find the quality is so low. there was one or two on oDesk doing horrible jobs but the rest are just terrific job. oDesk is also more modern and more active and friendly reaching out to the oDesk community - they do a lot facebook advertising.
oDesk to merge with Elance
81–90 of 144 posts
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't agree more. My experiences with oDesk have been overall phenomenal, while Elance has consistently been a pain. I wonder what's fully fueling the merger, as oDesk seems to be doing pretty well as of late on its own.
I've had issues with both, but most with oDesk. Companies / people - saying they are from the US or EU but actually being from India, obviously lying about it to appear more credible, - starting a project with (1 or more) seniors to get the project and trust and then switching those for the random people dragged in from the street (the worst juniors you can imagine), - blackmailing withholding parts of deliverables,…
where are you buiding your remote team? I m in saigon (ho chi minh) vietnam this month for that same reason.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#83I run a curated freelancing platform for creatives called Coworks. Being part of the industry it's really interesting to read your thoughts on the merger. Even though I've followed them very closed for two years as a competitor I was really surprised by the move. My take on it is: 1. They can lower their acquisition costs by not competing with PPC and in their content marketing. 2. Their real competitors, who are still sleeping behind the wheel, are Manpower, Randstad etc. With the merger they get the muscles to battle them for the online staffing market. 3. Last but not least- they'll ditch one of the platforms (elance?) and save half the money on Tech.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#84Also, I don´t think they will jack up the prices. Everything is moving towards 0% on all global transactions. Rather the opposite: They will offer enterprise solution with 0% commission pretty soon.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not directly related but shit like this really scares me away from these sites and make me lose some faith in humanity (look at the client's history): https://www.odesk.com/o/jobs/job/Artist-Needed-for-Home-Page... He's basically selling ratings. 147 jobs — which would usually cost you at least $200+ each — done for $829 total!
Yeah. Elance / oDesk aren't incentivized to prevent this behaviour. They want a site that looks busy, and full of "high-quality" / highly rated contractors. They could easily allow for filters to weed, though instead they allow for details to be hidden.
Having the ability to see everybody that scored in the top 5% for [specific skill] would be nice. Maybe an email to garyeswart@odesk.com is in order.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talented freelancers do themselves a disservice by using either of these "services". The only reason for a talented freelancer to use them is out of a desperate need for even abysmal compensation. This merger will likely make things worse for them (freelancers), not better. Yes, I know there are some freelancers working on these sites who earn a "decent" living. They're anomalies. The vast majority of workers earn re…
So where would you go to find a talented freelancer then? (Assuming you don't have any good word of mouth recommendations.) Not sarcasm - I'm generally interested if you have a better way of finding them that's more reliable that google searches or trolling stackoverflow.
We posted on this thread already, so I hope this isn't spammy, but we're http://getlambda.com and we personally screen all devs for quality.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#87It would seem that the two main incumbents in this market (founded in 2005 and 1998, respectively) are getting nervous about Freelancer.com's (founded in 2009) rapid growth (predicting ~73% in 2013) and recent IPO [1]. [1] http://www.zdnet.com/au/freelancer-more-than-triples-first-d...
It dropped rapidly in the first few days too http://www.asx.com.au/asx/research/companyInfo.do?by=asxCode...
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#88Oh, good. Now the experience of begging for slave wages fixing people's wordpress installs can be even more streamlined.
This kind of trite comment adds little to the discussion. I have some people that work with me on oDesk that I've found over the past few years. I don't pay them a lot by US standards, but they're good people. I've sent them various hardware, like Kindles and a new laptop to help them do their work better, and it has worked out well, although I was kind of nervous about it at the time.
Yes, this is the thing. If you are living at a US/UK standard or slightly below, DO NOT waste your time on Elance or ODESK. These sites are not designed to employee US workers.
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you give an example of a place where $2 peer hour is a lot? I often hear this type of assertion being made. I can believe that $2 per hour is enough to live off in some places, but I don't know of anywhere it would be considered "a lot."
Where I live, a software engineer makes about $500/month. That's $3/hour and some change, I know software developers who make even less. Freelancing for me is basically a no-brainer as I will not work for those wages if I can help it. I have the incredible fortune of being able to speak and write at a native level, that gives me and a few others an edge but most people suffer a lot. If you land a job making $5/hour,…
OK, I stand corrected. Where is that? (just curious)
Re: oDesk to merge with Elance
#90With vworker first being absorbed by freelancer and now this, there's a decided lack of competition developing in this market. I think these guys know that a startup will struggle to compete, getting the critical mass of devs and employers is the same problem as starting a social network. I share the view that ODesk quality is an order of magnitude better than elance, I think only those using elance will being thinki…
Our startup Lambda ( http://getlambda.com ) competes with both, but we're not the least bit concerned. I already thought of elance/odesk as being effectively the same, in the sense that they're both known as places to find cheap, off-shore labor. I don't know any devs in NYC who've seriously considered working through either site and don't expect that to change. Likewise, I don't know many hiring companies that have…
I think that your minimum rate is too high. A lot of developers would like to branch out and get experience with new technology but with a minimum rate of $100/hr you really can only offer your most familiar language/platform. Someone with 10 years of building Java apps, could build pretty good Android or iOS apps, if they could find a customer who would accept that career history at a lower rate. Honestly, I think that a $25/hr minimum would make more sense and is more in line with the real world.