[creativecoding]

So something interesting happened when I visited vworker.com. I was presented by a site called Freelancer. Turns out vworker has been sold.

I have a couple questions. What will this mean for me? A majority of my work comes from vWorker and so far I'm pretty happy with their policies right now. Will they change stuff? I'm especially interested in the pricing details.

[tlhIn`toq]

Don't you think you should be asking THEM those questions?

If I get my groceries at Ralphs and they get bought by Safeway I don't ask the guy at the camera store what it means to me.

I would have to assume that a notice will go out or be posted someplace on the site.

[no2pencil]

There was a representative from that site here for a while. Wasn't incredibly active.

VWorking bought Rent A Coder, so I'm sure not much will change. Just read over their policies.

[creativecoding]

I read it over. Turns out the whole site will be transfered to their site whith has a bunch of limitations unless you pay for it. For compensation im getting a free month of their premium service yippe. Looks like im going to need to find another site. Also, I havent heard from one of my clients recently. Tried to send him a msssage but I got an error. They broke the messaging system. Ill have to figure out what I will do once I get home.

[no2pencil]

That sucks. VWorker was the only 'free' to join, 'pay as you go' site that I knew of. I signed up for a few 'pay sites', but couldn't get enough work to make it worth while.

[tlhIn`toq]

Personally I could never get enough work through any of them to be worth while.

Way too many wackers out there willing to do 80 hours of labor for $100 and churn out crap code. Every second year student is willing to do it in order to get some practice and build a reputation. What they don't realize is they are building a reputation of working for less than poverty wages, and destroying the industry wage baseline for all of us including themselves.

Personally I find a lot more work just walking through life with my eyes open and talking to people. I'm willing to strike up a conversation with just about anybody. Its amazing how much work I've gotten talking to clerks at insurance agencies, independent hair salons, someone else waiting for coffee at the local java house and other small businesses.

Think about this: When was the last time you walked into one of these places and DIDN'T have the counter person apologize for the computer being slow and the program they are forced to use being crap? So hand the guy a card and tell him to pass it to his boss if they are interested in a CUSTOM application tailored to their wants and needs.

[creativecoding]

vWorker was great. Completely free for a small percentage of your bid - which they automatically add onto the price for the client. It was perfect.

Anyways I'll certainly keep an eye out. It'd probably be a little bit harder landing some jobs due to my age and such but I can still try. Word of mouth and friends have already given me a couple of jobs, but it's not really the same amount as vWorker.


Thanks anyways!

[no2pencil]

tlhIn`toq, on 20 November 2012 - 12:46 PM, said:

Think about this: When was the last time you walked into one of these places and DIDN'T have the counter person apologize for the computer being slow and the program they are forced to use being crap? So hand the guy a card and tell him to pass it to his boss if they are interested in a CUSTOM application tailored to their wants and needs.

That's not the type of work I do. The jobs I got on Rent A Coder/VWorker were generally Unix related, such as Apache instillation, dns, & the occasional wordpress blunder, that is to say they foobarred their blog & I had to go into the db & fix it so it worked again. I can't pick up those kinds of jobs talking to a receptionist.

Though I always make sure to keep a handfull of business cards on myself at all times, & in most situations the people that I hand them to don't call anyway. I'll hear someone boohooing about having a virus, or something wrong with their pc/laptop, & how much Geek Squad charges & I'll pass them a card, apologize for taking up their time, & tell them there are alternatives to big box stores. I'd say less than 1% of those have panned out. Maybe I just need to work on my people skills

[tlhIn`toq]

I'm a firm believer that attitude is a choice.

So I am choosing to see this as a good thing. Sure lots of people are going to complain about it not being totally free or having to pay a monthly rate. But on the other hand that might help filter out a bunch of the Mumbai outsourcers and kitchen table whackers that take 40 hour contracts for $10.

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 23 November 2012 - 12:11 PM

[Redcoder]

It's actually free for X bids(not sure how many, probably 10) per month. Then you have to buy a plan inorder to get more bids and some extra features which i'm pretty sure the 'Mumbai outsourcers and kitchen table whackers' can do without.

They work around that by creating multiple accounts, at the expense of accumulated ratings at their previous account of course.

For ratings, one will create other shell accounts, transfer money to and from while giving themselves high ratings and top comments at the expense of a small commission that Freelancer.com takes: till he has high ratings and enough accounts that will provide him with a sufficient number of free bids till the month ends and Freelancer.com renews them.

You see: THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY TO BEAT THE SYSTEM.

[tlhIn`toq]

That sounds like the old "check floating" scheme of the 80's when it would take several days for a check to clear from one bank to another.

I guess when you are getting paid in onions that's a reasonable use of your time. If the monthly fee is the same as a week's pay then its worth an hour of your time to do that crap.

But for me that's far more hassle than paying one Happy Meal a month on a grown up account.

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 23 November 2012 - 12:15 PM

[Redcoder]

Hahahaha...

My example was purely theoretical of if it was me how I would beat the system according to the data I know about Freelancer.com

Anyways, you can use FreelanceSwitch,forums and also designers. Many designers do not do anything back-end. If you can get a couple to give you a steady stream of work...you'd be .

Try to diversify your work streams...and on the same point, any Designers or Anybody willing to pass some PHP jobs to me, hit me up hehe.

[Coding123]

I looked for work on vworker and my feeling was that more and more under bidders where there. So I switched to elance. So far I'am happy with it. You only have 15 tokens per month to bid on projects so better choose wisely />

The one thing vworker was not good for was for being an employer. It charged huge ~16% on quoted price. Which is alot!
Elance has 8% I think. You could lower that percent on vworker, but you loose some bonuses with that.

Anyways, low bidders will always be there no matter what. We can not do anything about it. What our job is is to help our clients realize that it is us that they need and not a cheap solution which will be more expensive in the long run. I believe price alone cannot be the deciding factor of the awarded winner.

My 2 cents />

Regards,

[tlhIn`toq]

Coding123, on 05 December 2012 - 03:41 AM, said:

Anyways, low bidders will always be there no matter what. We can not do anything about it. What our job is is to help our clients realize that it is us that they need and not a cheap solution which will be more expensive in the long run. I believe price alone cannot be the deciding factor of the awarded winner.

Its a nice ideal. Kind of like saying that we shouldn't need guns in a civilized society. But the real world is different.

Price matters and WalMart and Home Depot proved that. Must customers are willing to give up certain things to get a lower price (like customer service and knowledgeable staff). The same is true in our profession. Add in the continuous churning out of coding students and what was once a rarified profession is now done casually by a larger percentage of the population as a hobby.

When I was in high-school home computers were new TRS-80 model one's that recorded BASIC programs on cassette tape. Now days high school robotic teams compete with some pretty sophisticated gear. These are the kids hitting the scenes today that us oldies in our 40's are competing against.

This post has been edited by tlhIn`toq: 05 December 2012 - 07:52 AM

[Coding123]

Well I think for low cost projects sure, you will have hard time getting a project with a high bid. Simply because there is not a lot you can f*** up and people like low prices. But for more complex projects low bidders do not matter THAT much. On these project my opinion is that the person who sells his service best is the winner.