Craigslist is great (I use it all the time), but there are few things more unnerving than inviting a total stranger billing himself as a “HANDY MAN, AT YOUR SERVICE!” to your house to make a few repairs. The vast majority of transactions on the site go smoothly and without incident, but there’s a reason Cragislist advises you to meet up in a public place and let a friend know what you’re doing, just in case. And even if the guy you hired isn’t a creep, there’s still a chance he won’t be any good at his job.
Workstir is looking to take some of the guesswork out of hiring for services like home repair, cleaning, and child care. The site, which we’ve described as a Craigslist/Yelp hybrid, allows you to post service requests to a forum frequented by these service providers, much as you would in the Craigslist ‘Looking for’ section. These service providers then contact you through Email. But instead of making you verify their credentials independently, each service provider will have a Workstir profile that features photos, their interests, and reviews from other Workstir users who have dealt with them in the past.
Service providers also benefit from this setup, as they’ll be able to view a daily digest of available jobs in their area, and can also elect to receive mobile alerts so that they can be among the first to respond to a request. And as the best service providers build up their ratings, they can potentially charge more than their less-able competitors.
The site will face competition from Angie’s List, which offers local service reviews for a fee, but its biggest obstacle will lie in establishing a large enough user base (both from customers and service providers) to make its reviews credible and worthwhile. That said, there’s definitely a market for trustworthy classifieds, so Workstir may have no trouble finding an audience.
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Cool….
domain sounds like a chinese take out. there is huge opportunity for improvement in the classifieds genre.
best of skill.
ContractorLocator.com - trusted everywhere
With the impending doom of F/T Employment there will a helluva lot more independent contract and P/T workers. A place for service providers to advertise and for consumers to vet them should do well.
Craiglist is one way of networking and social service to help people, their noble action is an example
it doesn’t accept two-word first name. geez. and a 4 digit zip code.
nice screenshot. that jennifer standford is hot.
That is the one thing that Ebay and Amazon had over Craigslist…A reputation and profile system. It took a 3rd party to do this, but hey I’m not complaining. Now if only they have a chat system
I can’t agree more about a chat system. Would be really great to ask the others on-line about their experiences and/or connect directly with the freelancer you are about to hire - if just to ask the simple questions like, “Can I pay with a credit card?”
I’m happy to see another company tackling the demand for better identity and accountability because it legitimizes iList’s claim that such a demand exists. I can’t say I prefer the workstir approach to the way http://ilist.com attempts to solve this issue. Linking to multiple social networks is more difficult to forge than a profile with reviews.
Ehhhhh
the hard part about this type of classified website is that it is location specific. You will need a lot of users in each location to make this work. It’s the whole chicken and egg thing. Craigslist has the market on this and if people are looking for people to do housework, repairs, or child care they would either go to Craigslist, Yellow Pages, or ask for referrals. Especially for child care.
Craigslist is great when used the smart way: http://craigzoom.com
Interesting!
Btw
Check out http://www.jobstaxi.com
New Jobs. Nixon Inc.. oDesk. Rockstar New England. FixYa. Snap. Gorilla Nation.
the space is definitely going to pick up at some point since craigslist seems to have no intention to enter it. workstir does some stuff right. ilist does too. there’s another startup myjambi that does similar stuff. and there’s a stealth mode startup called oddjobber that i believe looks pretty cool.
pfft. It won’t accept my zip code in a posting.
Zip codes aren’t integers guys, they sometimes have leading zeros.
Swaplogic is similar in that you can post free classifieds there as well, but instead of relying on anecdotal reviews, members can build an online Track Record of contractual events that demonstrate their personal and professional accountability. Now that is how you prove that you are trustworthy! But, its not all about business, with Swaplogic you can interact with friends and family and share your experiences in a unique way.
http://www.swaplogic.com
From a contractor’s point of view, the inherent problem with sites like craigslist, workstir, bidabuilder, etc. is that the easier it is for the general public to solicit for bids, the more likely the vast majority are only fishing and not serious about accomplishing the work, consiquently, it becomes more likely that contractors get turned off to the process after submitting hundreds of bid, only to have a very small percentage of customers carry out the work at all. This is the basic reason that when push comes to shove on these websites, the only “contractor’s your are left with tend to be less the honest or less than capable. An idea service needs to filter out those not serioius about getting the job done. Once the quality of customers goes up, so will the quality of contractors.
Hi,
6 months a go we launched in Italy a similar service called “GliAffidabili.it” meaning in English “The reliables”, where we allow service providers to post their profile and ads and service seekers to rate and review them once they tested them. Service seekers can see as well service providers location on a google map and can suggest to friends their favourite contractors.
It’s sometimes difficult to explain differences between our service and traditional classified, but your post really made the point by naming this market the “trustworthy classified”.
Another similar site that just launched in the Bay Area called VaVoca Inc. Means “Go Work” http://www.vavoca.com