Elance - oDesk Merger: Is it a good thing?

1. 67

   gitachudposted 10 years ago

   
   What does the recent announcement of the Elance and oDesk merger mean to freelancing online? Will this raise the stature of people currently active on those sites by giving them a wider audience?

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2. 0

   Ritesh Nisharposted 10 years ago

   Not good. oDesk is way better than Elance.

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3. 72

   relacheposted 10 years ago

   Quantcast estimates that Elance has about three times the traffic as oDesk.

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4. 66

   younghopesposted 10 years ago

   I have never joined any of these, so cant comment on your question, but can you please tell are these sites really worth it when it comes to earning money.

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      gitachudposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Am a member of Elance but I have not gotten any jobs yet. However, looking at the profiles of long standing Elancers, they appear to be making good money: some have made up to millions of $$$$! I have also seen many Hubbers who are Elancers and they are not doing badly at all. My gut feeling is that this is a good place to make money if you are skilled and have a good reputation.

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5. 61

   executivecateringposted 10 years ago

   I got the email yesterday and from what it said I don't think much is going to change, anyway I use both sites regularly and noticed on quite a few occasions if one does something the other one does the same.
   I think the sites have been operated by the same people long before now and this is just an offical way of declaring it to everyone.
   
   I like both sites and have managed to work with some fantastic people from all over the world.

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6. 32

   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   According to Bloomberg, "ODesk has almost 5 million registered freelancers, compared with 3 million for Elance."

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   1. 67

      gitachudposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      According to relache, Elance have three times more traffic. It seems Elance are better at attracting more traffic than oDesk. Does having more registered freelancers result in better quality? And how many of those freelancers have active and earning money?
      
      I think a better metric to judge the sites would be the amount of money earned over a period of time (say a month). Elance to me seems like a good site to make money if you have a constant stream of jobs.

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      1. 32

         Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         The Quantcast figures are just estimates and only for U.S. traffic, although both sites are global marketplaces.  They are not quantified figures.  The figures in the Bloomberg report include buyers and sellers of services registered on the sites. But both websites are now owned by the same company and the data bases are likely to merge in the future.

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         relacheposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         What I actually said was that Quantcast estimates that Elance has three times more traffic than oDesk. 
         
         I personally don't know either site from a hole in the ground.

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7. 68

   Ashraf Kamalposted 10 years ago

   Good news, but dont know how much new term and condition will effect present users of both.

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8. 70

   Aneegmaposted 10 years ago

   I've signed up with both Elance and Odesk and I can honestly say Odesk is far better and reliable than Elance. I get a lot of work from Odesk and Odesk pays much better than Elance. As far as the merger is concerned, I don't really see much difference. I just hope they can at least protect contractors from dubious employers and vice versa.

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9. 61

   dennisbrucknerposted 10 years ago

   This is a good thing.  Now I need to only go to ONE place when I want to outsource things, instead of managing multiple listings.  I hope they keep the incentives for freelancers, though, because I love using this service and would hate to see the quality of freelancers degrade.

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10. 32

    Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

    The industry for outsourcing is narrowing. VWorker.com (formerly RentACoder) was purchased by Freelancer.com in November, 2012. Now, Elancer and Freelancer will go one-on-one in competition.  I have used Odesk and VWorker in the past to find programmers and graphic artists.  I think content writers on these sites have difficulty competing against global writers when it comes to pricing.  However, I know several people who have found clients for content writing who eventually hire them off-site for continual work.  If you are looking for writing assignments, you must be prepared to work for less until you build up a portfolio and establish a reputation. There are many writers from HubPages who use their Hubs as examples of their work.

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