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1764

answers:

17

Anyone know of more sites to get freelance short jobs to make some extra cash, like odesk?

Any recommendations?

+1  A: 

See also this post which I attempted to tame slightly :)

For mostly web work in the UK I used freelancers.net with some success in the late 90's and early 2000's the people and companies posting the work seemed pretty knowledgeable about realistic rates.

sparkes
+4  A: 

However Odesk is better then those... at least in my opinion

Klesk
+1  A: 

Quoting a blog comment:

[T]hese sites all have a long tradition of listing gigs that are both laughable financially ($150 for a MySpace clone?) and sad creatively (you could probably depress yourself by searching for the word “clone”).

"These sites" would include odesk, GetAFreelancer, guru.com, elance.com, GetACoder, RentACoder, etc. There's plenty of such sites, but they all apparently to make it far too hard to find "cream of the crop" freelance jobs.

Sören Kuklau
A: 

Check out http://www.elance.com. Very professional, feature-filled site for basically any type of technical person to get work. They include jobs for programmers, graphic artists, voice over people, writers, etc. They even include skill assessment tests which, I thought, were pretty comprehensive.

Jeremy White
A: 

Any larger forum in the area of expertise you're acquainted with probably has a section for freelance jobs.

If you're bored and sick (i.e. you cannot do anything useful), try Amazon.com's mTurk.

analytik
+9  A: 

I've used RentACoder.com with some success. But it's true that you can find hilarious things. However, from time to time, there are serious offers. I've used it both as a buyer (looking for coders) and have completed a few jobs as a Seller (working for somebody else).

If you're a buyer in either site, you have to make sure that everything is written, documented, and available in case of an arbitration. Better safe than sorry.

If you're the seller, be sure to communicate often with your buyer.

RAC is ugly looking. Is Old. Is outdated, but if you can live with that, it tends to deliver.

Good luck!

Martín Marconcini
+1  A: 

I took a look at sites like elance a while back, but they're full of broken English "why yes, we would be happy to make Amazon.com for you for $1000" type people.

You might want to talk to your local newspaper and offer your services. I'm a web developer for a newspaper, and we have massive amounts of small, fast, one-off projects.

ceejayoz
+1  A: 

TopCoder does this as well. Their model is similar to SalesForce's AppExchange in that they try to componentize and catalog solutions for reuse.

A: 

Guru.com

I use it. One thing I like is that you need to pay $199.95 per year for the Guru status. Serves as a barrier to entry.

Pavel Chuchuva
What are the benefits of being a "Guru", it certainly cannot be that you know more, since all you did was pay
Juan Manuel
It puts you in a different light for a potential client. Just confirms that you are serious.
Pavel Chuchuva
A: 

DO NOT use rentacoder.com. I had bad experiences with them. Not the site's fault but the coders who hang out there are of poor quality.

A coder bailed out on me in the middle of a project and wasted a month of my time. Another coder canceled within 24 hours after getting the full source code of my application which needed conversion.

Plus coders which deliver code which didn't meet the clear requirements I gave them. I am a developer myself and I gave them clear instructions.

What frustrated me is that I picked coders with high ratings. I only had one good experience so your mileage may vary, but all in all the quality of work done by coders is pretty bad. I think these coders are beginners, inexperienced and cheap ones who bid on anything and try to do do anything.

I would try more professional sites like eLance.

Abdu
+1  A: 

If you're looking for niche sites, try http://www.freak-lance.com -- web design and graphic design projects only (including flash, banners, animation, print, et cetera).

For general freelance sites, including programming, try http://www.thesuperlancers.com

Hope it helps -

L. Hunter

+4  A: 

Just found a page that provides an exhaustive list: http://www.freelanceswitch.com/finding/the-monster-list-of-freelance-job-sites-2009-update/

torial
A: 

freelancetraffic.com

I was getting pay on time!

A: 

limeexchange.com,elance.com

+1  A: 

I have used Odesk as a seller with great success. The hired development team was very skilled. The only problem was the language barrier and that sometimes it would be days before i would hear from them.

EdM
A: 

Try Taskcity.com, they have quite a large range of freelance categories and their TaskPal team is pretty useful in solving communication issues.

Taskcity
A: 

The one that I'm signed up to is Scriptlance.com, they seem to cover the majority of programming languages.

Psytronic