Earlier this week we announced the biggest change in our membership model in 5 years.

The present model has served Elance and its community well (for example, in the last year alone payments to Elance service providers have grown 100%), but to make Elance a great online workplace we needed to introduce a membership model that contributes to even higher quality.

Since the announcement we have received tons of feedback.  We are able to incorporate some of that feedback immediately so it can be implemented at go-live on December 4.

Key points are listed below:

Elance Premier Program 
The monthly cost for participating in this new program will be waived until March 1, 2008.  This will give eligible members the opportunity to try the program and assess its benefits.

Posting Options
The "budget <$250" posting option will be removed.  The lowest budget posting option will be "budget <$500".

Connects 
Presenting proposals to potential customers will require less connects than previously announced:

In case you missed it, check out “Too Much Information? Ignore It”, an article in the New York Times last weekend by Alex Williams. 

It’s a profile about Elance customer Tim Ferriss, and how the lessons in his book, “The 4-Hour Workweek” - which are all about cutting out useless information in your life and personal productivity - are being received in Silicon Valley.



Elance CEO, Fabio Rosati, is also quoted in the article. One reason he believes Tim’s ideas resonate with ambitious Silicon Valley is because Tim practices what he preaches, by running a successful company and finding a way to live the lifestyle he enjoys.

Have you outsourced your life? Take a look!

Karen Swim, an Elance provider in the Writing & Translation and Sales & Marketing categories, has built her freelance business with the help of Elance buyers and the Elance platform.  A marketer with 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Karen joined Elance because she wanted to be in business for herself.   

"When I first visited Elance, I saw that there was this whole secret underground of people making a living outside of corporate America, and that's when I knew corporate America was part of my journey, but not the end," said Karen.

And that's when Karen decided to start her freelancing business.  "I just signed up for Elance and started bidding on jobs," Karen said.  "Elance really started my business."

Mark Archer has been an Elance buyer since 2005, having posted dozens of projects and managed many different providers as a virtual boss.  Mark is also a former Navy fighter pilot, real estate investor, and now a serial entrepreneur.

I met Mark by accident during my first week at Elance when I called buyers to learn about their experiences on Elance.  During our conversation, I discovered that Mark really believes in the 'pay it forward' philosophy - something he calls, 'get what you give'.

A few years before Elance came to life, Daniel Pink wrote a book about the rising relevance of independent workers and wrote an article with the same title which appeared in Fast Company at the end of 1997:

"There's a new movement in the land. From coast to coast, in communities large and small, citizens are declaring their independence and drafting a new bill of rights. Meet some of the 25 million residents of Free Agent, USA".

Today, the free agent movement is global and uses the Internet as its workplace.