Platform companies from Apple to OpenTable take a commission from developers or merchants. But figuring out how much to take has huge repercussions on the business explains Benchmark’s Bill Gurley. Read more »
Crowd labor is outsourced information work that can be provisioned automatically. It’s ideally, inexpensive, on demand, and elastic. Platforms providing such services are on the rise in 2012, promising customers lower labor costs in the short term and higher-quality output in the long term. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If you imagine that online freelancing is mainly the preserve of male techies, it’s time to revise your understanding. A new survey of the sector by consultancy Zinnov reveals women make up 55 percent of the online labor pool, along with other insights. Read more »
A new oDesk survey of users who hire workers through the online labor platform reveals most of the businesses using oDesk view hiring remote talent as a long-term strategy to boost competitiveness rather than a short-term stopgap or means to cut costs. Read more »
From the rise of sites like Elance and oDesk to the opinions of researchers and anecdotal evidence from knowledge workers, evidence is mounting that the future will feature a lot more contract workers. Now another survey is supporting the rise of the gig economy. Read more »
As in-house counsel charged with procuring outside legal services, corporate lawyer Nick Cronin saw how inefficient the process of sourcing professional services could be for businesses. He decided to do something about the problem, and niche online labor platform ExpertBids was born. Read more »
The future of work is already here. It is just already distributed, one might say. The freelance economy, microtasking, mobile workers, coworking spaces, crowdsourcing: All of these point to how work is increasingly shifting from the twentieth-century model of Taylorism (think scientific management applied to labor processes such as assembly-line production and fixed workplaces) to a more flexible, hyperspecialized and connected workforce. This report examines the new world of work, from the devices and software services we use to the growing role of social media, the importance of a group-centric mentality and how the roles of employees, managers and organizations are evolving. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The economy might not be booming but online labor platforms sure are. Last month, oDesk announced impressive growth and today rival Elance is doing the same. Elance says this is great news for US professionals who can export their services abroad. Is it really? Read more »
Think of independent workers, and you’ll probably imagine a lone professional staring at his laptop all day, supporting himself in his slippers. But there are some freelancers who build their solo gigs into thriving, and lucrative, businesses, employing others. Here’s how they manage it. Read more »
Work used to be a place. Increasingly, we can get stuff done from nearly anywhere. That’s changing how companies procure talent and workers build careers, but how fast are these changes are percolating through the economy? Today oDesk puts some numbers to the trend. Read more »
Blazing fast networks, cheap silicon, always-on devices and a torrent of data will fundamentally change everything — how we consume media, how we work, and even who we are. We examined 10 areas that show how connectivity is profoundly changing the present and future of technology. Read more »
No segment of the economy looks exactly buoyant right now, and small business hiring is no exception, but what does that have to do with the future of work? Plenty, suggest new reports showing that tepid hiring, is partially down to rise of freelancers. Read more »
Among business leaders, knocking the competition is an age-old pastime, and when we reported on complaints that online labor marketplaces like oDesk are driving down wages for freelancers, Mike Paolucci, CEO of U.S. focused labor platform Solvate, saw his opening. Meanwhile, oDesk fires back. Read more »
When it comes to piecing together a career as an independent worker, online marketplaces like Elance and oDesk can seem like all upside. But is this the whole story? A small business consultant suggests these sites present an often overlooked problem for freelancers – lower prices. Read more »
Consider this: managers spend between 30 to 80 percent of their time in meetings and more than 50 percent of them consider many meetings to be a “waste of time.” oDesk CEO Gary Swart shares his proven techniques for running a successful company meeting. Read more »
It’s not unreasonable to wonder if competition between web workers is fierce, with those with a super flexible gig or a fabulous freelance client fighting to keep rival workers away from their plum assignments. But is this really the case? Not according to research from oDesk. Read more »
Managers establishing virtual teams may dream of attracting the best and brightest in New York, San Francisco and Shanghai. The workers of rural places and smaller cities probably feature less often. Now the proponents of a movement known as “rural sourcing” are trying to change that. Read more »
New data released today by online work marketplace oDesk shows that small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs) are making use of freelancers in record numbers. oDesk says that the data points to an increasing number of SMBs using contract staff to grow their businesses. Read more »
Despite a fairly weak jobs market overall, freelancers should be optimistic. Online labor marketplaces oDesk and Elance have both released data showing strong growth in demand for freelance workers over the past year, with both sites reporting a large increase in the number of jobs posted. Read more »
Social tools such as Skype and instant messaging, along with social networks that help workers connect with each other, can make it much easier to manage remote teams than it used to be before the web came along — and doing so has become even more necessary. Read more »
You can’t innovate without collaboration, and without innovation, companies fail. There is now a whole new world of collaboration tools available to enable what can best be termed “high-impact collaboration.” These break-through tools — workspaces like Box.net, Huddle and Central Desktop or customer-powered support communities like Get Satisfaction — are made possible through the convergence of cloud computing, social software and the ubiquity of mobile technology. With these new technologies, employees can channel their passions and work together more effectively — regardless of where people are located — to accomplish their mission. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Apple, Twitter, LiveOps and Microsoft. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Technology is making the resume obsolete. Now, some candidates send LinkedIn profiles in lieu of resumes. But sites like oDesk and eLance more closely reflect the future of resumes and how companies hire because they use reputation data to shed light on a candidate. Read more »
Just in time for the Labor Day weekend, we bring you the second installment of our web TV series BBQ&A. In this episode, oDesk CEO Gary Swart turned up the heat with a homemade feast fit for a Silicon Valley king. Read more »
As we’ve reported, oDesk, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based online staffing startup, has pioneered new ways for tech workers distributed around the globe to find work. The company also collects lots of data on the tech skill sets that workers have around the world. Here’s a look. Read more »
According to data from oDesk, the number of iPhone-related jobs listed on its marketplace beats the total number of Android jobs, which are slowly inching up. There are 2,071 iPhone developers listed on oDesk vs. 624 Android developers. Read more »
