A catch phrase will go here soon.

RentACoder.com and eLance.com reviews…

9/7/2005

6 comments

I’ve been told by many folks that RentACoder and eLance do a great job I’m skeptical of these services since folks claim that it’s just “cut and paste” coders on the site and they take more management time then hiring a solid person through your own network.

Anyone have experience with these two sites? Good? Bad?

Looking at the feedback out there:

A bunch of comments good and bad (I’ll keep updating this as I do my research sorry if you’re up late and in your RSS reader :-) :
http://dev11.otherworks.com/theotherblog/Articles/2004/08/18

This guy says he hired folks from eLance to make dry wall content for him and the stole itouch!
http://www.drywallsecrets.com/2005/08/19/content-theft/

This guy says Guru.com and eLance.com are better for finding writers (not sure I would outsource blog writing any time soon but interesting place to perhaps find bloggers!):
http://all-about-web-content.blogspot.com/2005/08/outsource-

This Infoweek story mentions TopCoder.com, a site I wasn’t aware of:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?artic

Just found another site: http://www.scriptlance.com/

The other side of the coin a freelancer complaining about folks wanting 600 word stories for $1.
http://www.website-content-writer.com/archives/2005/09/05/pl

This guy groks the space and mentions GetaFreelancer.com
http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2005/09/the_ri

Nice this guy came up with 10 rules for using outsourced coders basic stuff, but interesting: get a code inspector I like that one. I wonder if the code inspector+overseas outsourced coder=the price of a solid US programmer?
http://tomdean.net/Marketing/?p=20

A breakdown of eight diffent rentacoder type sites includes PHPCareer.com (never heard of that one!):
http://helpdeskportallinks1.blogspot.com/2005/08/answering-e

This site feels a little icky they are talking about low-cost content production (ugh) in relation to making money off adsense and mention all these odd sites:
http://webcontentprovider.blogspot.com/2005/08/what-adsense-

Someone who hates RentACoder and suggests GetAFreelancer.com
http://spaces.msn.com/members/networkprogramming/Blog/cns!1p

Liam debates spending $500 bucks on off the shelf software or spending $30-100 on software created on RentACoder that he will own all the rights too that debate has to be happening all over the place.
http://liam.xerasoft.com/?p=9

Google Answers on RentACoder:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=245339
Google Answers creates a list of RentACoder solutions (for $50! Heck, I would have done it wait, I’m doing it right now for free!):
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=281390

Rick talks about Fletcher using these services to help build Bloglines (I think the Bloglines notifier was done by a freelancer for $500 Mark said that at eTech I think ):
http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2005/03/elance_vs_renta.htm

  • Jim Dean

    I had a horrible experience with Rent-a-Coder. The coder and I went in to arbitration and that coder from a 3rd world country ended up sabotaging my website by putting some iframe codes into my web pages and therefore, initiating Google to paste up the dreaded “SITE ATTACK” message. I will never use them again.

  • Tom

    DONT USE ELANCE. Got scammed by their crappy provider network for a website resign. They stole my money and skipped town, Elance was not help and told me to contact them directly (good luck). All Elance cares about is getting their payment %.

  • http://elance Jaz

    ouch! I am an elance provider but I have never copied and pasted anything, all
    work is mine, original and if anything some clients don’t want to
    pay what the work is worth, but I work for writing and translation
    not website codes or anything for that matter. Better luck to you guys
    looking.

  • Tim Ferguson

    Keep in mind that there are good and bad people
    out there everywhere. Don’t blame the “messenger,” i.e.,
    RentACoder. Their service provides about as much
    protection as anybody can dream up. Just follow the
    rules, do a little research on your applicant, and you’ll
    go home happy. I haven’t a problem whatsoever using them.

  • Bob_J

    The problem with rentacoder, elance, and all the other freelance sites is that they are completely overrun by foreigners who charge bottom basement prices. Why pay a real price to someone here in the States, when they can get someone in India to do it for pennies?

  • Trent Hill

    Of course it is true that some people will not perform their
    duties as expected. However, this is not the fault of Rent-A-Coder,
    it is the fault of those individuals. Rent-A-Coder is simply
    a tool to be used by employers and coders to connect with one
    another. It creates an international labor market for programming,
    which has never before been actualized.

loading
English Bulldog

Hello, my name is Jason. Welcome to my blog on the interwebs. You can reach me on twitter @jason and by email at jason@calacanis.com. My Skype is jasoncalacanis, and my mobile phone is 310-456-4900.

I only pick up numbers I recognize, and in terms of emailing me, the best strategy is to write short, blunt and to the point requests. I can quickly respond to short messages, and many times I simply don't have the time to read five page pitches. In terms of taking meetings, I only do that after reviewing an actual product (not a business plan). So, the best time to ping me is when you have mockups or an alpha site. I don't read business plans, and I've never written one.

Other twitter accounts you can follow: Video Games, Open Angel Forum, and LAUNCH Conference & Newsletter

Archives

Blogroll