What's New

We are excited to announce our latest product release, which includes improvements that help the management of remote engagements and help Providers streamline several day-to-day administrative tasks. 

• MyElance Redesign for Providers
• Status Reports and Job Tracker

MyElance Redesign for Providers
The new MyElance interface lays the foundation for future enhancements and includes many suggested enhancements we have received over the last few months.  Watch the video tutorial »

We are excited to announce the latest product release to the Elance community, which includes improvements that make it easier for buyers to award, collaborate on, and manage their projects. We’ve also made it easier for providers to get repeat business.

Key Enhancements:

• MyElance Redesign for Buyers
• Repeat Projects
• Business to Business Job Posting
• Bid Minimums
• Buyer Award Process
• E-checks
• Referral Program

Each week, Elance Providers are awarded their first projects, receive hundreds of positive reviews, and reach significant earnings milestones. We celebrate the successes of our amazing providers by recognizing them on our new Provider Network Milestones page.



Just last week, 203 providers won their first project – and last month, 84 providers completed their 10th project with positive reviews.

Did you make it on the honor roll? Find out by visiting the new Milestones page in Elance University.

We are excited to announce the latest product release to the Elance community. The primary goal of this release is to optimize the evaluation, interviewing and hiring process for buyers (and in turn, leading to successful award outcomes for our providers.)

We released a powerful new invoicing system today.



With this release, service providers will be able to:

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!

If you have been using Elance over the past year, you've probably noticed some changes.  We've recently added enhanced provider and project search, enhanced profiles including video, click-to-call, chat, the Water Cooler discussion forums, Elance University, and more I haven't mentioned with more yet to come.

These changes have been received very positively - the proof of the pudding is that the number of jobs available for Elance service providers has increased substantially this past year. I'd like to take a moment to tell you about what we are working toward at Elance, so that (hopefully!) you'll be as excited as we are about the new workplace we are building.

As part of our Sept 12 release, we added a new Elance "Call" (click-to-call) feature, which lets Elance buyers call service providers for free directly from their provider profile page. Just click the Contact Me button and access the "Call" tab to get started.

We added the feature so that buyers on Elance can get instant access to providers, which is helpful to the hiring process on our site.  With instant access, buyers can conduct interviews, determine a provider's availability and discuss project needs in more detail.  After that, buyers and providers can determine together whether or not to move forward with a project.  Also, buyer phone numbers remain private, so sharing contact information is a choice.