Freelancing On The Internet an Industry Review 2010

Market Position There has been little change in the standings of the leading Freelance marketplaces this quarter with the two US giants,Elance andoDesk continuing to lead the field by a long margin.

From the data available it is clearoDesk is leading the packwith billings up 25% on the first quarter of 2010 to $25.6m.Elance is second tooDesk by billing volume in this period, but led the market in terms of innovation, with the inclusion ofElance in Google Apps expected to help the long term market leader regain some lost ground.

Elance experiencedgrowth in billings over the previous quarter, up 11% to $23.2m. Australia basedFreelancer has demonstrated strong growth with a 78% increase in billings over the last quarter, moving themup the rankings to 3rd place in the market. With quarterly billings of $8.9m. While the leading British marketplace,PeoplePerHour jumps up the rankings to 4th position, partly due to the absence of data from Guru.com orvWorker.

With billings of $3.3m USDPeoplePerHour continues to demonstrate phenomenal growth. . Some other marketplaces were not forthcoming with data in this reporting period. . Of those that did, LimeExchange and ScriptLance were top performers with billings of $0.45m and $0.5m respectively. Table 1: Overall freelance marketplace positions as at 1st July 2010



The 2nd quarter of 2010 saw continued growth across the freelancing sector, with most major freelance marketplaces increasing their billings. This trend of growth was partly at the expense of smaller marketplaces who experienced a contraction in billings due to buyers switching allegiance to more established marketplaces.

Although this shift of purchasing power to the market leaders has helped increase the bottom line and total billings at each of the top 4 marketplaces, it is clear that there has also been an increase in the volume of individuals and small businesses utilising outsourcing marketplaces to get work done. oDesk, the market leader in the first quarter of 2010 has increased its billings by an impressive 25% over the last quarter, raking in some $26.7m between April 1st and June 30th. Elance has also demonstrated strong growth with over $23m in billings, up 11% on the first quarter of 2010.MeanwhileFreelancer, the Australian based freelance marketplace s is also on the way up, with almost $9M in billings in this reporting period, up 78%.

The most impressive gains have to be those experienced by British marketplace, PeoplePerHour.com. Under the stewardship of Xenios Thrasyvoulou the site has increased billings by an astonishing 120% in the past quarter alone. Xenios Thrasyvoulou, CEO of PeoplePerHour says “I think we are on track to realise our target of being theglobal leader in this space. We are already leaders in the UK and capturing ground in the US at an incredible speed.We feel we have a superior product and a much more engaged community so we are confident we will meet our target.