Technology companies need tech writers—to write help files, user manuals, and back-end documentation. Some tech writers also write web content and marketing material. It seems natural then, that oDesk Buyers working with developers would eventually look to oDesk for their tech writing needs. And they already have! The figure below shows the number of tech writing job openings over the last 4 months (click image to see large version).

CNNMoney.com ranked technical writing as the 13^th best job in America this year, with strong growth and high salaries. Here is a link to the CNNMoney.com report. oDesk has also experienced a recent surge in provider applicants with tech writing experience. As of today, there are 155 tech writers in the oDesk Provider Network, 55 of which have joined in this month alone.

Click here to search for a tech writing job opening.

Click here to search for a tech writer to hire.

We believe that more information will help our users make better decisions. We have been constantly pushing out more information, both on the public website and in the user-only My oDesk application.

Recently, we had a question on our Community forums about the Provider Rate box on the homepage, asking for some very relevant information. While we figure out how to push this information to our website and make it real-time, I wanted to post the histogram of the Number of Active Providers, by Hourly Rate range. (Click the image to open full size in a new window).

Also, be sure to check out the Pay Rate Visibility table in the Community, showing active assignments and their hourly rates.

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Abid

The number of US residents with broadband Internet connections surged 40 percent last year alone to a total of 84 million, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. DSL connections are now leading the charge, with certain companies in the Bay Area wooing customers with rates half as low as were common for dial-up during the early days of the Web.

Like many things Internet, the era of broadband connectivity was seen as imminent during the go-go days, and then quickly forgotten about when things turned south. Well, it turns out that the baby may have been thrown out with the bathwater, and that reality is finally creeping up on the early hype. So what does this mean for another great promise of the Internet- the ability to unshackle knowledge workers from the claustrophobia of the cubicle? It can’t be too far behind.

And while tech work attracts the spotlight when it comes to remote arrangements, the stats regarding the US are especially promising with regard to the myriad of other types of knowledge work- such as tech writing- where the US has an especially talented workforce. We’re sure to hear more of this story, so stay tuned.

Hi guys,

We are about to move to our new offices in Menlo Park, right off the 101 highway (see links to our location below). We have completely run out of space in our current offices. People have been forced to use conference rooms. When I joined about a year ago, we had an even smaller office space, and about 5 of us were stuffed, elbow-to-elbow in a small conference room about the size of 2 cubicles. We called it the Boiler Room.

I ran across this cool mashup of Google Maps to create a map-based Wikipedia. Check out Wikimapia.org

You can search for the tag for our new office location: odesk

Or click here to go there directly.

Here is a Google Maps link.

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Abid