odesk

The tech employees who have to muzzle their dogs and their bowels

The whole delightful, lovely thing about technology is that it knows no boundaries. The whole mean, portentous thing about technology is that it knows no boundaries. Freelance home-office workers used to enjoy only the delights. Now they are not so sure.

The Wall Street Journal slapped me about the chops this morning by unveiling the magical ingenuity of companies such as oDesk.com.

ODesk's website promises that you can "hire, manage and pay contractors as if they were in your office."

And how does oDesk recreate the spirit of office joy in the homes of freelance workers?… Read more

Elance updates tools for hiring, managing contract labor

Online jobs marketplace Elance is getting a big update next week, designed to bring more small businesspeople into the world of hiring workers they don't know and will never meet.

The service will layer in a workflow that should make the whole Elance process easier for newbies. There's a new time-tracker widget for contractors that automatically feeds data into the project page and the invoicing system. (It can be configured per job, if the contract is for piecework instead of time-based.) Elance, by the way, does not support keyboard logging or periodic screen capture of a worker's … Read more

oDesk adds fixed-price option to its gig marketplace

The online service marketplace oDesk (previous oDesk coverage) has just added the capability for buyers to spec fixed-price jobs. Previously, all oDesk contracts were hourly. This move puts oDesk up against gig marketplaces like eLance and RentACoder, which are also based on fixed-price bids.

"The problem with the fixed price market is that it's not sticky," oDesk CEO Gary Swart told me. Many business relationships that start with one-price jobs evolve into working relationships where the pay is based on the time put in. Swart maintains that competing marketplaces don't foster (or let you manage) that … Read more

oDesk finds qualified programmers for you

From the Web 2.0 Conference:

oDesk is all about outsourcing. It's an online market where people can hire programmers and other information workers. In addition to making matches, the system also takes screen captures of contract workers at frequent intervals so that hiring managers can ensure they're billed only for actual work performed.

New at the Web 2.0 conference is a pretty new interface that should make it quicker and easier to search for workers with specific skills, experience, and fees. Also new: the official rollout of the company's skills tests and certification programs, which … Read more