You heard it right! Elance is heading southbound to Austin, Texas, home of longhorns, legendary bar-b-cue, live music, and the world renowned South By South West conference. We’ll be in full force hosting a booth at the main conference hall at the Austin Convention Center as well as participating in this year’s Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator program as judges and sponsors taking place at the Hilton Austin Downtown.

But this year, we won’t be able to make SXSW a success without you. Every year, new faces, cutting-edge technologies, and smarter applications surface to the world at a breakneck pace, and we need some help from some elancers to cover all of the fast-paced action. That’s why were offering two full-access SXSW Interactive badges (valued at $500 each) to two very talented blogger/social media/journalist-types to perform in-depth, hard-hitting coverage of the show as members of the Elance Team. We'll also be providing you with $300 stipend as well for your stay in Austin.

So, are you interested in attending SXSW Interactive this year? Do you have the writing and reporting chops to compete with the rest of the media? Do you eat, breathe, and live all things tech? Write a 500-750 word blog post anywhere you'd like on which technologies, companies, and influencers will be making big waves at this year’s show and send us the link at alex@elance.com. Don’t forget to submit your name, the dates you plan on being in Austin for the show, and a picture so we know who to look for if you win. Please only enter this contest if you have arrangements to attend the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas during the duration of show, and remember that we'll be looking for 2-3 blog articles per day of coverage during the Interactive festival as well as several posts of preview and after-show coverage. 

We’ll be taking entries throughout the rest of February and will be announcing the two winners and highlighting their winning entries on the Elance Blog on March 1, 2010.

Good luck, and we hope to see you in Austin!

Links:
SXSW Conference 2010
Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW

While the Internet is one of the most powerful tools to facilitate communication, distribute information, and most importantly, enable work, it’s also chock full of sports scores, viral videos, tweets and wall posts, email chain-letters, and a ton of other distractions that can negatively affect your productivity and work output. (Trust me, I know.)

Here are a few tips you can follow to help better manage your work time to stay productive while also keeping yourself happy.

1. Set The Time: Bucketing your time into various categories can really help you stay focused and become more efficient with your day. Typically, I set my work into three different groups.

First, there’s standard “work” time. While working on my general projects, I'm also available to be contacted through standard email (Outlook or your software or web client of choice), instant messenger, Skype, the Elance Workroom, work-related social media, telephone, web cam etc. This is when you get your primary communication done before getting started on your main projects.

Second, there’s “solo” time. This is where I close Outlook, close all Internet browsing windows, set my IM status to "busy", and get down to business. Some others suggest completely unplugging to get away from Internet distractions (oh YouTube, you always come calling), but I stay connected just in case there is any online reference material I need access to or if there is some emergency contact that needs to be made regarding a project. Use the combination that fits your work life best, but remember to make sure you designate some time alone to get to work.

It’s been a busy week in the tech world. While some of the rumors turned out to be more fact than fiction, some other rumors failed to materialize at this week’s Apple announcement.

Yes, the iPad is real. Very real. The “magical and revolutionary device”, as Steve Jobs puts it, features a 9.7-inch LED-backlight Multi-Touch display, Wi-Fi, a custom 1GHZ processor, and a ton of other standard Apple amenities you have grown to expect.

The device, which some say is just a giant iPod Touch, is designed to present the web, email, news, apps, e-magazines, and books in a new, even more-touchable form factor. And another bonus – right out of the box, the iPad will support all 140,000 apps available at the Apple App Store.

Speaking of apps, when the newest technology, devices, and platforms strike, the Elance community is right behind it. With the Droid and an army other Android devices joining the party in 2009, there’s no doubt that mobiles have been making huge news. And it shows. The Mobile category on Elance has grown nearly 200% in payments made throughout the course of last year, and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, especially with the announcement of the iPad.

Consequently, within mere moments of the announcement of the iPad, we began seeing iPad related jobs being posted, and that number is continuing to grow. Within 24 hours, we saw over 20 clients posting jobs looking for skilled iPad professionals, and as of right now, we have highest number of iPad-specific job posts out there on the web.

This just goes to show you – when cutting edge technology hits, Elance is where businesses, entrepreneurs, and skilled professionals go to get work done.

At Elance, we’re always striving to provide you with a faster, more elegant, and more efficient platform to hire and manage over 100,000 talented online professionals. Keeping that in mind, the internal team here has been hard at work upgrading the site with new elements that will not only update the look and feel but also improve ease-of-use across Elance.

As some of you perceptive elancers may have already noticed, today, we’ve introduced a new, streamlined global navigation with a number of visual and functional improvements.



First, we’ve increased the font sized used in the main navigation as well as added several color elements to make it easier to read and quickly identify where you are currently on Elance.

Secondly, we’ve created a new “Community” drop down menu that can quickly take you to the Blog, Water Cooler, Groups, Elance University, Trust & Safety, and Trends pages. We've also added links to our Facebook and Twitter pages so you can interact with us via our favorite social media sites.

Lastly, we’ve streamlined the navigation by reducing the number of main tabs by moving the Inbox tab to the top right corner by your username, and we've replaced the Explore tab with How It Works to improve clarity. Please keep in mind that the Inbox link will only appear when you are signed in.

Give the new navigation a test drive and tell us what you think by dropping us a line in the comments below. And before we go, one more thing: As you continue working online on Elance, some of you may run across a newly designed homepage. Throughout the next couple of weeks, we'll be testing with a small portion of users several different variations of a new homepage we've been working on, so be sure to keep your eye out for it. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Normally, any tech rumor story I find floating on the web comes bundled with a huge grain of salt, but today, the rumblings of the possible expiration of AT&T’s exclusivity contract (PCWorld) with the game-changing iPhone has myself and the entire tech world buzzing.

At Apple’s special event this Wednesday in San Francisco, analysts, reporters, shareholders, and gadget fans are all patiently awaiting the release of Apple’s new venture into the tablet market. However, the strong rumor stealing the limelight is that the Cupertino-based electronics manufacturer may be announcing the end of its exclusivity arrangement with AT&T and the potential release of the iPhone on Verizon later this year.

This is clearly the right move at the right time for Apple, if they choose to do so. With Android increasing its market share with the number of mobile handsets, carriers, and mobile applications developed, it’s clear that Apple is feeling the heat from their neighbors in Mountain View. Opening up to other carriers, specifically Verizon, would be the smartest move to not only thwart Google’s advances but also address criticisms of AT&T’s wireless network by allowing consumers to have a choice.