If the Internet has made one thing crystal clear, it’s that physical borders and geographical distance are no longer necessarily an absolute barrier for conducting business.
More and more companies are getting accustomed to the idea of being able to do business with companies on the other side of the world using nothing but digital communication means, or to have entire business units or projects led by teams made up of people located all over the globe.
Hence the popularity of services such as oDesk and Elance, websites where you can outsource given projects to registered programmers, designers, writers, legal experts and whatnot. Another player in this market is GetAFreelancer, an Australian company that’s been offering freelance jobs online since it was founded back in 2004.
Today, the company is announcing that it has changed its name to the far better-sounding and undoubtedly more memorable Freelancer.com. They bought the domain name from a private individual who used to run a magazine called Computer Freelancer over 15 years ago, for a ’six figure sum’. All in an effort to increase its visibility and profile.
GetAFreelancer CEO Matt Barrie tells us that the site recently hit a big milestone and now boasts over 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide. Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.
Not too shabby for a bootstrapped venture.
I think the real genius of GAF was to implement 100% payout on referral fees. They did this a few years back as an experiment and apparent it worked well as they continue to pay out at 100%! Way to go Freelancer.com!
Wow that’s gotta be great for advertising. Essentially, they give away the profits on a sale they would never have had in the first place at cost.
Free advertising. Then in the future, the users come back for more.
Genius. They’re like printing money (or advertising). Genius
http://www.traderbot.com
The freelancing website I love the most…Congrats..By the way, didn’t they announce a $10000 logo design contest for ‘GetAFreelancer’..
Now the name’s changed :O
nice move. the power and value of natural language location is priceless.
What does that mean? What referral fees?
I wonder how much they paid for Freelancer.com I did ask Michael (owner) but he never replied to me as I posted about the change 2 days ago.
Amazing to think it was only 8 years ago and I was lucky enough to have one of the elance guys speak in my Organizational Design MBA class. Students said “this will never work.” Wonder how many are working for ODesk, elance, and freelance now? More thoughts on org forms at http://www.terr...infrastructure/
Compared to the other freelance sites I’ve used, gaf has to be my favourite. Nice switch
Thankfully it isn’t something stupid (hey, yeah you, sitepoint)
Applause for bootstrapped startups. Way to go.
http://www.traderbots.com
that site sucks, I got scammed by one of their users, and they sided with the scammer, even after he admitted to them that he scammed me.
Alex,
that’s the reality of the web. People will try stuff on, and you’ve got to be a bit awake to deal with it.
The thing I like about GAF is that I don’t have to pay until I see product I’m happy to pay for.
You still sometimes get crappy work, but avoid the worker in the future and find good people. But I’m paying like 1/10th of what I was paying for locals, so I can live with the odd bad experience.
@opr8r: Excellent! Thats GREAT for the local economy, I am sure. Less (or no) pay for the local citizens, less tax revenue for the city, county and state – as well as federal govts.. Less spending at local stores… And government is wondering why the economy is in the crapper? Housing crisis my butt. Its ALL about greed. Good going.
I take your point, but then I’m feeding someone to whom $50 a month is a lot of money. Maybe you’re just being greedy wanting to maintain your huge car, huge house, fat lifestyle?
Yea, thats it. Maybe I need to instead take that job at Borders for the same pay you’ve reduced the industry to. But dont come crying when it all comes crashing down……… and mark my words – it will. Best of luck.
Poor James. Little man can’t get ahead. The MAN is holding him down. sniff… sniff…
James, when someone is getting a service for cheap, why should I pay more? What would you do if a bank offers you a loan at 4% and another at 5%. Would you choose the 5% bank just because its in your neighborhood?
I don’t have a problem with outsourcing, just not with GAF, odesk/rentacoder, all great alternatives
Freelancer wants ME to pay THEM to get a job? Uh, no. Thanks anyway.
If I am going to look for freelancing work then I am not going to spend $144 a year to bid on projects like the one titled “State of the Art Website required”…… State of the art? owner’s budget $1500-$3000??? Are you for real? Especially with “I need someone to develop a website with a logo for me from scratch. I have a conceptual design of what the database should look like. I require this website to be driven by a database preferably Access. This website needs to be HIGHLY functional and also very VISUALLY appealing. Please PM me with samples of prior work done.” as the only SPECS to go on?
And I have to pay $144 to actually rebut these VAGUE specs?
No. Sorry. Have fun people. This is a tech sinkhole waiting for you to trip into.
While I don’t use GAF as a worker (but have posted projects), I think you have it backwards.
If you want to bid on a project to build a website thats how much you want to be paid, not how much you have to pay. lol.
They’re just like ebay, they take a cut on the transactions.
I did a few projects when I was getting started. I bid low to get jobs. A few of them turned into long term clients. They liked the fact that they were working with an American they could call on the phone. Now these clients pay me $60 – $75 per hour to maintain their sites.
I never use GAF anymore, but doing those jobs got me started. I always recommend newbies go there to gain experience and build their portfolio.
@opr8r wouldnt pay you that rate no matter how good you are. He’d rather pay 1/10th of what he pays locals so that he can keep is 5000 sq/ft mcmansion and escalade and eat out every night with his 6 kids. Dont you get it? Its all about greed.
As a developer who relies entirely on freelancing sites for income, I see it the other way around, its all about market access. If there were no freelancing sites I would likely have had to deal with a job that had me sitting in an office all day, no freedom of how I structure my hours or ability to take a few days off between projects. Changing employers would be a hassle and contingent on factors not related to my work skills. I also likely wouldn’t be as good a programmer or have the opportunity to work with as wide a range of technology. I am able to compete with admittedly low bids because of the efficiency that I can now work with, had I stayed in the world of illusionary ‘job security’, cubicle politics and overconfidence not tempered by the occasional test of reality I would probably not be enjoying my chosen line of work as much as I am.
It’s called free market
Agree, out of a 100 projects on GAF, only 1 or 2 have realistic budget.
This site just kills me, used to be a freelancer, most of my customers finally turned to these kind of site, because it’s cheap (and not because they’re getting better job, sure not for the money they’re putting on the table). Putting 2000$ for a 3weeks+ project, that’s just insane, i got almost 50% on taxes, if i wanted to do enough money to live as good as a corp job, i would need to fuckin work 80h+ a week on crappy projects.
They’re killing the freelancing, and that’s not for the best.
Just to be clear, freelancing sites do not set the budget for projects, that is set by the person who posts the project, as a developer you can contact them and try to convince them of raising the budget for whatever reasons you can muster. I would bet that most freelancing sites would very much prefer that their projects have higher budgets as they tend to take a fixed percentage of that amount. What you and James seem to be arguing against is the very idea of open markets?
Personally I have experienced a number of occasions where the client has paid me an unexpected bonus due to the quality of work performed.
I do believe that people who post jobs should generally be better informed on how to recognize a realistic budget and to realize that programming is rarely ‘cookie cutting’.
I also think that many programmers would benefit from being more articulate regarding the quality of service and product they provide, as well as being able to ‘read’ clients better. In my view choosing the right clients is critical to being a successful freelancer.
This is exactly the way we’ve been doing with the third world countries! For decades we’ve over supplied them with a lots of crap stuff, unable to compete, they’ve turned their attention to what was once the life-blood of our economies; “science and technology”. Now, for every American programmer there are about five Indians. They are not your ordinary Indian citizen; they’re highly skilled workers that are being produced on the cheap from the sub-continent top schools like the IIT. Thus, this disparity of talent vs. price.
Mind you the IIT is not a mum•bo jum•bo type of school. Just ask the almighty Google; Microsoft; Intel; IBM; Dell etc. how much they’ve benefited from a vast pool of cheap young and talented people coming out or being a product of the sub-continent.
Now, if we want to avert this exponential and be able to compete we should stop listening to the likes of sarah palin; kanye west; britney spear; george w. “shoes” bush etc. and starting educating our kinds properly. I don’t mean media studies…:)
Erm, you don’t have to pay anything to bid on the majority of the jobs there.
Some ‘clients’ wish to offer jobs to only premium bidders, presumably because they want to make sure they are dealing with serious offers, that is their prerogative.
During the process you are free to ask as many questions as you want to get a spec agreement between you and the customer.
Not really sure what you are on about
I think it’s Swedish not Australian.
It’s complicated.
http://www.geta.../info/about.php
Was it started by Swedes who emigrated to Australia to escape exorbitant taxes? No, that’s not complicated. it’s a no brainer
Nice move for them to get the domain before their competition did.
I have used eLance quite a bit and find the writers to be decent but the software development might be lacking. I want to diversify between the providers.
We developed http://www.vois.com which unlike these other sites, has no membership fees and zero % of earnings taken! Plus it is a decentralized platform with no middlemen. Give it a shot
I liked GAF so much that back in college for one of my final projects I wrote a GAF clone. I still make money from it, but most of the money comes from GAF referrals!
Tried Get a Freelancer once… they held my money in escrow after the vendor went MIA for 3 weeks.
After a couple of emails it was clear the guys running Get a Freelancer were a bunch of a-holes..
finally had to do a chargeback…
Don’t waste your time with customer service on the site.
They appear to have changed owner back in about June.
Since then customer service is slowly getting a little better.
They also appear to actually work on the site. The graphics are getting lots better (hard to get worse), they ask for feedback and then fix things that are mentioned. They’ve also sped up the site a lot so that its actually a lot more usable.
Escrow can be a pain though on a bunch of the sites I’ve used. You often have to perservere, which sux. I understand why workers want it though.
its great market to achieve your target in short term and boost your growth
thanks
tonic micheal
crea8ivedesign.com
its great market to achieve your target in short term and boost your growth
Even one more kid on the bock is my http://www.shopfordesigns.com Its a graphic design auction marketplace where people can auction graphic design projects like logo design website design brochure design corporate identity design etc. All jobs are prepaid and one can see what one is buying before paying for it.
Virtual Outsourcing is the way ahead for SMBs and Start-ups. We at 8KMiles strongly believe this and also realize there is a need for not just virtual talent bit virtual infrastructure as well.
We have built 8KMiles.com as a cost effective and secure cloud based outsourcing & infrastructure solution for SMBs, start-ups and IT consulting companies.
8KMiles.com not only provides access to verified and qualified remote talent on-demand but also provides access to pre-configured cloud based (Amazon Cloud) remote desktops & servers on-demand. We have built the only true cloud based outsourcing system enabling a no cap-ex “Software Development-as-a-Service” model.
Do check it out: http://www.8KMiles.com
Yes friends. But have you actually tried to use Freelancer.com?
Just today I signed-up, posted a job — a very serious, big DESIGN project — paid $19 so it would be listed as “featured” and let fly (yay the answer to my immediate staffing needs!). And the result? A trickle of form letters, written in poor, barely intelligible English, from companies who are completely and uniquely unqualified for the job, i.e. they are in the business of SEO or platform development or marketing… not DESIGN.
What a complete waste of time.
I presume this is yours?
http://www.geta...e-Consumer.html
Good for them! Much better domain. If you are going to go with a keyword domain it might as well be THE keyword.
Good for them! Much better domain. by the time , i note another free marketplace http://www.befreelancer.com . but most of the money comes from GAF referrals!
I have used some good providers on gaf. and maintained a good working relationship with them. Problem is GAF decides to suspend their accounts for no valid reasons. I actually know of some providers who have been put out of business by suspensions with no grounds.
In addition to this some clients are getting ticked off that their money is being held in escrow to pay for jobs where the provider is put under suspension. The provide can’t even use his account to release the escrow.
This really borders on fraud. Holding money in escrow is a trust position,that is actually covered by international law. This goes for holding money that belongs to the provider as well.
Commonsense,
Please shoot a note to us in the support desk (attention Matt) about any provider you know that has been suspended wrongly and we will sort it out.
Regards
Matt
This answer gives very professional note in PR way, and gives me more reason to stay on GAF as on my first choice freelance site.
Yes, the glory of huge success of Freelancer.com brought a tremendous joy to its all members (Service Buyers and Service Providers) who had spent their time and money there. GAF (now Freelancer.com) helped the millions of jobless and hungry people of the 3rd world providing scope of work from home at the idle time.
Matt,
We are happy to see a progressive efforts made by Getafreelancer.com to provide best freelance services to buyer and service provider. Congratulations for all these efforts and wish you to be #1 freelance website in world!
Regards,
Sikander
Congratulations to getafreelancer. The new URL is a great step forward. I also find it fascinating that they have freelancers from 234 countries. That truly shows the global phenomenon of the freelance outsourcing market.
If folks are interested, we are putting together profiles of the top 25 outsourcing locations at http://www.offs...gCountries.html We are compiling data from wage rates and taxes, to resource availability and IP protection.
congratulation to getafreelancer. Its going to be the all time best freelance site.
you guys forgot the pioneer in this now-crowded market: RENTACODER.COM
agree……..and they still work as the best………..i feel more secured and protected. rac rocks!
We are very very Happy to know that OUR SITE has 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide.Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.
I will remain One Proverb in his moment “HARD WORK NEVER FAILS”
GAF did a Great work and GET Life to More over 1,000,000 User in their Site….
We wish GAF to Hit more and more MILLION ,,BILLION…. Customers in the FUTURE….
GAF”GATEWAY OF OUTSOURCING”…
Respectfully,
Joseph
Job well done Matt Barrie!
@ScottyMore
I have been in GAF for 2 years now.
All i can say till this moment is : I LOVE GAF = Freelancer.com
I think the new name is GREAT!
I wish all the best to GAF and their creators and owners.
1) GAF is crazy for Alexa rankings so it’s fair enough to look at Alexa, even though that’s shallow.
GAF seems to be losing ground to odesk and elance. 6-12 months ago they were level pegging with elance and odesk was nowhere. Now they are level pegging with odesk and elance is way ahead of them. Both of the other sites are ’stickier’, too – look at ‘bounce’ and time on site. Is there a future for a #2 or #3 market site or is this a winner takes all business?
2) There’s very marginal stuff all over the website about wanting to ‘hire an Indian developer’ or a ‘female assistant in the Phillipines’ or whatever could land them in trouble with the FTC if they want to continue to operate in the US.
http://freelanc...of-federal-law/
3) The freelancer sites may not be as immune to criminal and civil prosecution as they think they are – if they act as middlemen in deals where both employer and employee are breaking the law in some country or acting in a way that subjects them to civil liability. They are touching the money and taking a cut; I’d be surprised that they have a ‘common-carrier’ style defense. Dunno if those ‘I want to hire someone to spam Craigslist’ or ‘I need 2000 Gmail logins’ could land them in trouble …. the competitors look cleaner (fewer posts of this sort) but the whole sector could be in trouble.
4) Sooner or later some hardass Indian web programmers are going to clone the site and produce something more economically (lower %age cut) and culturally tailored for the bulk of the providers – India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. With the ill-will towards Australians in India right now due to various problems I wouldn’t be surprised to see their lunch eaten by a Indian-based site possibly with ties to outsourcing firms further up the food chain than the sort of work you see on GAF.
hello GAF
best of luck for the new name freelancer, well I’m in the GAF since 2yrs…We are now leading to develop Auction web sites in the word it is possible only I started the GAF.
well……my start was with GAF….it started well enough…but now the rates r going down like anything……..cannot stay live on them…..had to switch………there been scammer buyers……..and the site literally did nothing…..what the heck……i feel protected at rac now……however ….i wish them goodluck………but want to share an incident from last one hour……….had deposited 30$ to pay one provider…….from my paypal……..after returning to the site……it still shows my balance 0……..ok….fine………i tried the online support………..when i logged there…….the support is offline……..i have to wait now……….ohh god…..GAF is looking at the money more like hawk now…..and less on the service……..good luck but improve plz!!!
i hope….they will fix the 30$ asap now……providers do not know…….we have to face these situations before we pay them!
brohhma, as per the notice on the site, paypal’s IPN notification went down between 130am and 530am EDT yesterday.. all is now back in order now as you can see.
I am sure they paid a lot for the Freelancer domain. Got a project just an hour ago, decided to upgrade to Golden to NOT pay any commissions (as I did in the past). Well, the Golden membership has increased from $12 to $19.95 and NOW they are charging 3%….. not happy.