Press
July 10, 2008
Nice Work If You Can Get It: Web Sites for At-Home Jobs
One exceptional success story comes from Arron Washington, 24 years old, a Hinesville, Ga., programmer who dropped out of college after realizing he could make as much as $60,000 a year on oDesk.com. "The offers just kept pouring in," he says.
July 4, 2008
Il lavoro interinale sul web "Assumi, gestisci e poi paghi"
Il meccanismo di Odesk è semplice, e le funzionalità che datori di lavoro e liberi professionisti hanno a disposizione stanno rivoluzionando il modo di reclutare free lance, informatici, grafici e in genere chi lavora per il Web. [Story written in Italian]
Read the original article in Italian or the English translation from Google.
June 25, 2008
oDesk CEO Gary Swart at Structure 08
oDesk CEO, Gary Swart, was interviewed at the Structure 08 conference hosted by GigaOM.
June 25, 2008
oDesk the Answer to Wall Street Journal Reader's Question
Sue Shellenbarger
Work & Family Mailbox columnist Sue Shellenbarger answers reader's question about work-at-home opportunities for a retired information-technology specialist. (below the fold - scroll down to the day's second question).
May 11, 2008
Gas gouged? Try telecommuting
Eve Tahmincioglu
As companies try to keep wages down in this economy, it's harder for managers to argue against telecommuting as they see their employees and themselves hammered by escalating fuel prices.
March 27, 2008
Outsource (Most) Any White Collar Work
Phil Leigh
If you would like to learn how to hire remote part-time white collar workers and manage them effectively over the Internet, this interview is for you.
Podcast Interview with oDesk CEO Gary Swart
February 25, 2008
oDesk Has a Deal for Freelancers
Mike Gunderloy
oDesk is a different sort of market for freelance developers, designers, and others. By focusing on some extra features, they've positioned oDesk as a place where both hourly rates and overall job sizes are somewhat larger than the industry average (you can check out their oConomy community site for some aggregate information on jobs and rates). To do this, they add things for both buyers and sellers.
February 12, 2008
SIIA Announces 2008 Codie Awards Finalists
Established in 1986, the Codie Awards recognize 68 categories of outstanding products and services in the software, digital information and education technology industries. This year's 340 finalists represent an impressive array of technology and business excellence and success.
February 8, 2008
oConomy offers an easy way to see outsourcing statistics
Anthony Ha
oDesk says it's helped companies outsource more than 1.6 million hours of work completed by more than 47,000 providers in more than 90 countries. And through oConomy, the company is giving the public a chance to browse through data about all of those jobs.
February 6, 2008
A Look At Outsourcing Through oDesk's Eyes
Mark Hendrickson
oDesk has just released a new part of their site called the oConomy where anyone can view statistics about the outsourcing activity on oDesk.
Features include the ability to view average working rates, among other data about providers, from around the world on a Google map. You can also view an up-to-the-second metric of how much money has been spent on outsourced projects, as well as graphs of how rates and quality vary over time and providers.
February 4, 2008
CVSDude to Grease oDesk's Outsourcing Wheels
Mark Hendrickson
These two companies are a natural fit for one other. Whereas oDesk helps developers from all over the world find clients, and vice versa, CVSDude provides tools that help developers collaborate with each other and share their work with clients. In particular, CVSDude hosts version control systems that enable developers, perhaps located continents apart, to work on the same set of code without having to worry about redundancy and conflicts.
November 13, 2007
Red Herring Releases List of Finalists for the "Red Herring 100 Global" Awards 2007
The Most Promising Private Technology Ventures in the World to be Celebrated at Event in Seattle, Washington.
September 10, 2007
oDesk's Facebook Developer Aptitude Test
Michael Arrington
oDesk, a next generation marketplace for contract developers, has recently seen a spike in requests for Facebook developers.
oDesk offers developers a number of aptitude tests to certify their programming skills in various areas. They've now added a Facebook aptitude test as well. Companies can now sort through developers based on their skill level in creating Facebook applications.
July 13, 2007
Entrepreneur profile: Odysseas Tsatalos
Elizabeth Browne
What oDesk does: Enables buyers of services to hire, manage and pay technology service providers from around the world.
Reason for starting business: To allow people to work directly and be able to pick the place they live.
June 18, 2007
Online Market places: Every Minute Counts
Amishi Shah
Online marketplaces have traditionally been places for small and medium buyers to obtain services from small and medium entrepreneurs. But Gary Swart, CEO, oDesk feels differently and expresses, "We are getting noticed by bigger players like Motorola and Sandisk. Motorola needed AJAX programmers in Chicago, who they found through our website."
Another change Swart is seeing in the online marketplace area is that buyers are increasingly looking at the time-based work model than agreeing to work for the fixed-price model. "Buyers opt for this as it offers greater flexibility and they have to pay only for the real time that providers work. Through this, both sides are building better and long-term relations."
June 14, 2007
Outsourcing the eBay way: Web sites match users, contract programmers
Patrick Thibodeau
Global job-matching services such as one offered by Menlo Park, Calif.-based oDesk Corp. are showing that companies of any size can hire offshore IT talent to work on projects.
Aaron Smith operates a small company in Corinth, Texas. He has been using oDesk's online service to find development help and said he works most closely with a programmer in Russia who is paid $15 per hour. A U.S.-based programmer doing similar work would expect hourly rates of $60 to $120, Smith said. Without access to the global talent pool, "we would still be in business, but our software would be far more limited than what it is," he added. "Outsourcing gives us a chance to compete."
June 7, 2007
Bangalore Tigers: The Rise of India's Tech Industry
Steve Hamm
oDesk, of Menlo Park, has taken the eBay idea and applied it to tech services. At last, industrial-strength off-shoring from the little guy to the little guy.
oDesk also has some attributes that help it stand out from the pack. It's not just a middleman where service providers and clients find each other. Additionally, the company provides a technology infrastructure that enables sellers and buyers of services to establish long-term relationships with one another. oDesk keeps tracks of hours worked and handles billing and paying. And, so buyers are assured that they're getting what they're paying for.
May 4, 2007
Small is the new big?
Om Malik
A wave of tech-enabled shops finally delivers on all the Web 2.0 hype
Drive your labor costs with oDesk, which makes it easy to find talented programmers on the cheap.
May 4, 2007
oDesk: job search meets the online exchange
Ephraim Schwartz
Not just an online employment service, oDesk is a virtual environment for contract workers and their employers with collaboration tools, a time clock, and monitoring features
CEO Gary Swart describes oDesk as a global marketplace that lets employers hire, manage, and pay at globally competitive rates software developers, designers, and programmers.
April 24, 2007
Red Herring interview: Gary Swart, oDesk
Sean Wolfe
Need software writers for hire? oDesk runs a global marketplace that lets employers hire, manage and pay technical workers such as software developers, graphic artists, and technical writers. Employers search for workers within the oDesk marketplace based on skills, work history, employer ratings, and pay, and then build virtual teams. oDesk handles billing and payments and supplies collaboration tools. oDesk continues its efforts to improve tools that track jobs and knit together virtual workers from India to Russia ever more closely with the home office.
April 16, 2007
oDesk adds fixed-price option to its gig marketplace
Rafe Needleman
The online service marketplace oDesk has just added the capability for buyers to spec fixed-price jobs. Previously, all oDesk contracts were hourly.
"The problem with the fixed price market is that it's not sticky," oDesk CEO Gary Swart told me. Many business relationships that start with one-price jobs evolve into working relationships where the pay is based on the time put in. Swart maintains that competing marketplaces don't foster (or let you manage) that changing relationship; and likewise, until now, oDesk wasn't able to kick off relationships that were best started as single gigs.
April 16, 2007
Matching Developers with Hirers
Darryl K. Taft
There is no question that many companies that require IT support find it hard to locate sufficient talent in their local market. And many developers find it hard to get work in the regions where they live.
That's where oDesk comes in. oDesk is a great equalizer, a matchmaker, if you will. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based online marketplace allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote technical workers around the world.
April 12, 2007
$10 Million Spent To Date On oDesk OutSourcing Projects
Michael Arrington
Silicon Valley based oDesk, which is a marketplace for developers and companies looking for outsourced developer help, seems to be sailing along nicely. Next week they'll announce that $10 million has been spent on outsourced projects to date, and they have 750,000 or so total billed hours. That's up 50% from last November, when we reported that they had reached 500,000 billed hours. oDesk keeps a flat 10% of fees.
Until recently oDesk only allowed projects to be priced on an hourly basis. Two weeks ago they launched fixed price jobs as well, which is something many comments here requested in our previous posts about them. After a month of quiet beta testing, 750 jobs were posted at a fixed price, with an average price of around $500.
April 4, 2007
Red Herring reveals companies selected for The Red Herring 100 North America 2007
Award Recognizes the 100 "Most Promising" Companies Driving the Future of Technology
April 4, 2007
Red Herring reveals winners of The Red Herring 100 Spring 2007
Award Recognizes the 100 "Most Promising" Companies Driving the Future of Technology
January 15, 2007
Swimming in the Global Talent Pool
Mary Brandel
Jeff Kiiza would never have imagined that he'd be writing code in Perl, PHP/MySQL and AJAX for companies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Spain - and that he'd be doing it from his home in Cordoba, Argentina.
Hemang Dani is pretty amazed that in the past six months, he has boosted his income to $5,000 per month by working for companies in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Australia. Dani's projects range from coding "shopping carts" and enabling credit-card processing on Web sites to managing portals as a webmaster.
Dani and Kiiza have jumped with both feet into the global talent pool. Both [work for] Menlo Park, Calif.-based oDesk Corp.'s online marketplace, which links programmers with businesses that need their services.
January 15, 2007
Follow the talent
Elizabeth Corcoran
Sosa-Pascual is intrigued by professional networking ventures... That drew him to oDesk, which is serving as a clearing house for engineering talent around the globe.
November 28, 2006
Help is at your fingertips
Mark Stachiew
Bids on oDesk. Contractors vie to fulfill your technical needs.
Whether you need a .NET developer, an Access whiz or a technical writer, oDesk has a pool of thousands of technical contractors from around the world who can do the job for you for a reasonable fee.
November 20, 2006
Fishing in the Global Talent Pool
Mary Brandel
Thanks to employee referrals, in- country recruiting firms, global job boards such as Monster.com and Jobster, sophisticated corporate Web recruiting sites and online programmer "marketplaces" like RentACoder.com or oDesk, there are more ways than ever before to communicate and collaborate with skilled individuals who happen to live overseas.
November 19, 2006
oDesk Hits MileStones, Lowers Fees
Michael Arrington
It is our opinion that oDesk fills an important niche in the startup world - helping companies find outsourced development help for projects. This is a service that we've used ourselves and plan on using again.
November 3, 2006
TechCrunch Site makes Arrington a power broker
Rebecca Buckman and Vauhini Vara
oDesk Corp., which brokers jobs between computer programmers and companies, says a September write-up on TechCrunch snared five times as many new customers for the company as a BusinessWeek article earlier in the year. When oDesk got funding in September from venture-capital firms, it gave Mr. Arrington -- and a few other bloggers -- the scoop. TechCrunch "has been amazing to help us get visibility," says Jason Chicola, oDesk's marketing director.
September 27, 2006
oDesk, marketplace for developers, raises $8 million
Matt Marshall
oDesk is a start-up that provides a marketplace for companies to hire developers online and then keep near unprecedented control over them remotely.
September 27, 2006
oDesk Announces $8M Funding from Benchmark
Nik Cubrilovic
At the recent Future of Web Apps conference in San Francisco, Michael Arrington (the editor of Techcrunch) listed oDesk amongst a group of companies that are "ones to watch". We are bullish about oDesk's prospects, not only because of the rising demand for good providers but also because of their approach to connecting and managing the relationship between providers and customers.
September 27, 2006
Small-Business Awards by PC Magazine: Outsourcing Finalists
John R. Quain
"Don't be afraid to try different things - just monitor the results."
oDesk's largely open-source-based platform includes online team rooms that allow clients and hourly employees to check in, collaborate, and monitor work projects.
September 8, 2006
oDesk Provides On-demand Skills
Nik Cubrilovic
My startup Omnidrive first found oDesk when we needed to find contract C++ development skills to work on a project. At first look, it appears just like one of many other portals and marketplaces that assist project managers to find talent - but upon close inspection oDesk has distinct advantages that make it one of the best and easiest ways to find employee's on-demand.
May 5, 2006
oDesk emerges with $6M
Paul Bonanos
The recruitment and management service raised its money primarily from Sigma Partners and Globespan Capital Partners.
May 2, 2006
Startup That Manages Home-Workers Launches
A startup called oDesk, which has been in beta for 2 years, has just launched today. It provides a match-making service for home jobs and then uses screen grabs and web cams to prove to employers that work is being done.
May 2, 2006
Homeshoring: Beyond Call Centers
Sarah Lacy
Part of oDesk's appeal is that it's not just matching those looking for work with those who have it, but also helping employers overcome one of the biggest challenges they face when hiring remote contractors: trust.
April 10, 2006
An inside look at outsourcing via oDesk
Dave Rosenberg
Sarah Lacy told me about oDesk a few weeks ago but I haven't had time to check it out until now. While my initial assumption was some kind of Irish IT company (get it? O'desk?) its actually an online marketplace for offshore development talent where engineers/developers/etc can post their rates along with their credentials to take on your offshore work. And people with needs can post jobs for developers to apply to.
February 20, 2006
Virtual Extended Staffing with a Major Twist
Dian Schaffhauser
I just learned about a company that provides online access to developers and other technical talent -- both domestic and offshore. Before you say, "Oh, that's what Elance does..." hear me out.
This Sunnyvale, CA firm -- oDesk -- offers clients not just access to talent, but also access to a tool that I haven't seen at other freelance help sites.
July 22, 2008
Apisphere to Work with oDesk to Easily Integrate Location-Awareness Capabilities into Mobile Applications
Apisphere, Inc. http://www.apisphere.com, a leading provider of location-awareness services for mobile business applications, today announced it has partnered with oDesk, the leading marketplace and management platform for technical work, to provide Apisphere's customers with professional services to support the quick and efficient integration of its Geo-Enabled Mobility (GEM) platform in mobile applications.
June 4, 2008
oDesk Secures $15 Million In Series C Funding
June 4, 2008 -- Menlo Park, Calif., -- oDesk, the leading marketplace and management platform for technical work, today announced it has secured $15 million in Series C financing. DAG Ventures led the round. Existing investors Benchmark Capital, Globespan Capital Partners and Sigma Partners also participated.
February 7, 2008
oDesk 'oConomy' Offers Unprecedented Data on Pay Rates, Job Performance of Remote Workers
February 7, 2008 -- Menlo Park, Calif., -- Today oDesk (http://www.odesk.com/w), a leading staffing marketplace and management platform that helps companies hire, manage, and pay remote technology workers, announced the launch of the oConomy (http://www.odesk.com/community/oconomy), a rich database of information that exposes hourly wages, technical skills and feedback ratings for the global oDesk workforce. The company also announced that a record $22.5 million has been spent on technology projects through the company's marketplace.
January 31, 2008
CVSDude and oDesk Team Up to Drive Software Development Success
January 31, 2008 -- Menlo Park, Calif. and Brisbane, QLD, Australia-- CVSDude, a leading provider of hosted open-source development tools including Subversion (SVN), has teamed up with oDesk, a leading online staffing marketplace and work platform, to offer fast-growing software companies access to talented technical professionals and tools that enable faster delivery and higher-quality software products at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions.
November 7, 2007
oDesk CEO to Discuss the Future of Hiring on Nationally Syndicated Radio Program
November 7, 2007 -- Menlo Park, Calif., -- This coming Sunday, November 11 at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, oDesk CEO Gary Swart will discuss the future of hiring on The CEO Show with Robert Reiss.
October 27, 2007
oDesk Named Rising Star in Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 Program
October 23, 2007 -- Menlo Park, Calif. -- oDesk, an online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote technology workers around the world, has been named a Rising Star on Deloitte's 2007 Technology Fast 500.
October 4, 2007
oDesk Offers $50 Commission For New Businesses, Software Developers Referred to its Job Marketplace
October 4, 2007 -- Menlo Park, Calif., -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote technology workers around the world, announced a referral program in which oDesk users will be paid $50 for reach new member they refer to oDesk who completes $1,000 worth of work. The referral program is designed to reward members for bringing new, high-quality professionals to oDesk and encourage a strong and trusted work community.
September 18, 2007
oDesk Sets the Standard of Excellence
September 18, 2007 -- Menlo Park, Calif., -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote technical workers around the world, announced that it has received the Standard of Excellence Award in the Professional Services category from the International WebAwards.
September 11, 2007
oDesk Releases Facebook Development Skills Test for Remote Software Developers
September 11, 2007 - Menlo Park, Calif., - Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote technology workers around the world, released a Facebook development skills test to help businesses hire the most skilled Facebook application developers to build cool, new widgets and applications for the popular social networking site.
August 16, 2007
oDesk Launches New Billing and Payment Center to Simplify On-Demand Workforce Management
August 16, 2007 - Menlo Park, Calif., - Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), n online marketplace that helps companies hire, manage and pay remote workers around the world, announced a new billing and payment center that will make managing remote work relationships easier than ever.
April 30, 2007
oDesk Expands Provider Payment Options with Payoneer and the oDesk Debit MasterCard ®
April 30, 2007 - Menlo Park, Calif., - Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote technical workers around the world, announced that oDesk providers can now sign up to receive an oDesk prepaid Debit MasterCard to access their earnings from anywhere in the world.
April 16, 2007
Record $10 Million Spent on Outsourced Technology Projects Through oDesk's Global Software Development Marketplace
April 16, 2007 - Web 2.0 Expo, San Francisco, Calif., - Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote technical workers around the world, announced that a record ten million dollars has been spent on outsourced technology projects through the company’s global job marketplace. Thousands of companies across the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Saudi Arabia, Australia and other countries have used oDesk to hire from more than 10,000 tested, rated technology professionals from all over the world.
March 26, 2007
oDesk Adds Fixed-Price Jobs to Global Software Development Marketplace
PALO ALTO, CA (March 26, 2007) -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote technical workers around the world, announced the addition of a fixed-price option to its current hourly pay structure. The new fixed-price option, currently in public beta, gives more flexibility to buyers and service providers for setting their rates and allows for optimal pricing in the remote work marketplace. oDesk is the first and only job marketplace that allows both fixed-price and hourly pay options.
November 27, 2006
Strong Growth Enables oDesk to Slash Fees Nearly 60%
PALO ALTO, CA (November 21, 2006) -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace and platform for managing remote work, announced that it was lowering its transaction fee from 23% to 10%, citing improved operational efficiency, increased customer adoption, and revenue growth as key enablers.
November 7, 2006
oDesk Rolls Out Free Skills Testing for Software Developers
PALO ALTO, CA (November 7, 2006) -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace and platform for managing remote work, announced the production rollout of oDesk Online Testing (www.oDesk.com/tests), a free skills testing service for programmers and hi-tech professionals. The new service offers over a hundred assessment tests for popular programming languages and technology skills such as Ajax, PHP, MySQL, .NET, Java, and XML. Launched in beta earlier this summer, the service is now available in production and will be highlighted at the Web 2.0 Conference this week in San Francisco.
November 7, 2006
oDesk and O'Reilly Partner on Globalization Mashup for Tech Skills, Rates
PALO ALTO, CA (November 7, 2006) -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace for remote work, and O'Reilly Media announced a partnership to publish data and trends on the economics of the global programming workforce. An early beta version of the "oDesk Economy" website (beta.oDesk.com/economy) will be demonstrated at the Web 2.0 Conference this week in San Francisco, and a production version will launch in early 2007.
September 27, 2006
oDesk Announces $8 million Series B Round Led by Benchmark Capital
PALO ALTO, CA (September 27, 2006) oDesk, an Internet startup that provides a marketplace for hiring global technical talent and web-based tools to manage remote teams, announced an $8 million Series B investment led by Benchmark Capital.
June 7, 2006
Thomas Layton, CEO of Open Table, Joins oDesk Board of Directors
SUNNYVALE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 06/07/2006 -- oDesk, an Internet startup that lets companies access an On Demand global workforce, announced today that Thomas Layton, CEO of Open Table, has been appointed to its Board of Directors. Mr. Layton brings a tremendous amount of experience building marquee Internet businesses as well as an extensive network of relationships in the sector to the company. He was a cofounder of CitySearch, Inc., which later merged with Ticketmaster and is now a subsidiary of InterActiveCorp.
April 25, 2006
oDesk Announces $6 million in Series A Funding
SUNNYVALE, CA (April 25, 2006) oDesk, an Internet startup that lets companies hire and manage remote workers from its global talent pool and pay them on an hourly basis, announced a $6 million Series A investment from Globespan Capital Partners and Sigma Partners.