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30th April 2011

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History of Elance:
The Dawn of the Elance Economy:
In May 1998, Professor Thomas W. Malone and Robert J. Laubacher published an article in the Harvard Business Review titled, "The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy." This landmark article spurred much discussion in the academic and business press. Its core proposition was that "the devolution of large, permanent corporations into flexible, temporary networks of individuals" was already underway. This trend was being driven by Internet-related technologies that lower business-tobusiness transaction costs. The lower transaction costs enabled by personal computing and electronic networks change the "economic equation." This change reduces the value of centralized decision making, diminishes the economics of conglomeration and encourages companies to outsource a wider variety of business functionsespecially specialized functions that are peripheral to a company's core competencies. The authors went on to say that while "no one can yet say exactly how important or widespread this new form of business organization will become, but judging from the current signs, it is not inconceivable that it could define work in the twenty-first century."

The Birth of Elance, Inc. :

Inspired by this vision, Elance's founders began planning the infrastructure required to support the "E-lance Economy." They realized that the biggest impact of this vision would be felt in the services industrybecause of its large share of the world economy, its high outsource-able quotient and the substantial inefficiencies found in today's services supply chain. Elance saw the need for technologies and solutions that made virtual work possible and improves the way businesses buy and manage services.

Elance for Small and Medium Businesses. :

Since its debut, Elance has evolved into the world's leading project-based marketplace and workspace, helping tens of thousands of small and medium businesses outsource to service providers in a wide variety of categoriesincluding graphic design, web design, software development, engineering, writing, translation and market research.

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Elance for Enterprises.
In 2002, Elance brought its services vision to enterprise customers with the industry's first comprehensive solution for Services and Contractor Management. Elance's solution, designed to streamline and automate the process of finding, buying and managing services, was quickly adopted by forward-thinking companies including American Express, BP, FedEx, GE, Motorola and other leading companies. Today, Elance is the most widely used application for Services and Contractor Management. More than 200,000 employees are using Elance to find, buy, manage and pay external services and contractors from more than 2,000 suppliers across 50+ services categories, including information technology, consulting, contract and temporary labor, marketing, print, human resources, engineering, maintenance and facilities. In 2006, after significant accomplishments including the milestone of over $7 billion in services spend actively managed by Elance customers across multiple service categories from suppliers including Accenture, BearingPoint, Cognizant, Deloitte, Infosys, IBM, Keane, Oracle, Tata, Wipro and others, Elance sold its Enterprise business unit to Click Commerce (NASDAQ: CKCM).

7 Steps to Outsourcing High Quality Article Writing:

1) To begin with, you'll need articles that demonstrate the sort of style and content you're
after. These can be yours, or another website's. (Note: This is for your writer to be inspired by, not copy!)

2) Advertise for a ghost writer. This lets your prospective writer know you want
them to imitate someone else's style and will help you narrow the field quickly to those who can do it. Attach a couple of sample articles and ask them to provide an example of their own writing in a similar style.

3) If you can, hire 3 writers. You do this for the same reason that you get 3 quotes
for a plumber. Without a comparison, you'll accept much lower standards (and possibly higher prices). And if you're lucky, you'll end up with 3 great writers. Spend some good time on this phase - 'hire in haste, repent at leisure'. One thing I always do is chat with writers I like the look of in the Workroom. If they can't communicate well, they aren't going to write well.

4) Once you have chosen your winner(s), feed back and ask for a specific
improvement to the article. This lets you check how they respond to feedback and lets them know you're serious about quality. Plus, forcing yourself to work out what would improve an article helps you improve your game. Compliment your writer on what you like about their article - they'll do more of it.

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5) Get them on a schedule - for example, one article per week. This gives you an
external deadline to stick to that will keep your content creation process ticking along.

6) Be prepared to pay. If you're having SEO-focused articles written (and why

wouldn't you?), do a bit of math to check how long your monetization model will take to pay back what you've paid. Work out how much traffic the article would need to attract to achieve this and then decide how much you're prepared to pay.

7) Do it again. If you can create content that will pay for itself, why not get 10
writers all creating one article per week? Unless of course you just don't want to grow that fast ;-) Although it can feel like a big step, outsourcing your content creation to skilled writers is one of the most important things you can do to help your web business grow. Put the time in now and it will free you up to focus on other areas of your online business.

Find clients, get hired, get paid:

Join the world's leading site for online work, where thousands of businesses are already working with professionals like you. Communicate your talent, showcase your portfolio, and stand out from the crowd with your state-of-the-art profile on Elance.

Create a profile that shines:

Use our elegant portfolio system to show off your best work. Highlight your top skills and credentials. And join professional Groups. Businesses searching for your skills get an immediate sense of your talent and can hire you directly from your profile. Or apply to jobs posted by prospective clients.

Get paid on-time, guaranteed:

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Collecting payment can be time-consuming and stressful. When you use Elance to deliver great work, your payment is on-time and guaranteed. With our licensed Escrow system for fixed price work and our Work View system for hourly work, Elance has got you covered.

Take control of your work-life balance:

Choose which clients to work with, the types of jobs to work on, and the schedule you want to keep. Working online offers unprecedented flexibility and control over your professional career and work-life balance.

Work with contractors in compliance:

Worker classification:
With Elance's self-serve tools, you can appropriately classify contractors and ensure compliance with tax and labor laws. Set alerts for duration of service, and easily convert contractors to W2 status with Elance Payroll Services.

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Tax filing:
1099: U.S. based clients hiring U.S. contractors may be required to submit a 1099 tax form to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For clients with multiple jobs and contractors, this can involve a great deal of paperwork. Elance eliminates this manual process, and will file required 1099s on your behalf for free. W2: For longer-term contractor relationships, Elance offers an integrated W2 solution that helps you minimize risk, save money, and easily manage your contractors. With Elance Payroll Services, you can use the same Elance interface to manage your contractors whether they are classified as 1099 or W2.

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Insurance:
Making sure that your contractors carry the proper insurance is important for risk mitigation. Elance includes two levels of insurance protection for contractors you hire through Elance. E&O insurance All providers on Elance are covered with Errors and Omissions Insurance (E&O). General and Professional Liability Contractors working through Elance Payroll Services have the added protection of complete general and professional liability protection.

Spend analytics:
Sophisticated reporting tools provide clear visibility into your contractor spend. Analytics include:

Spend by purchase order (PO) Spend by contractor Spend by project type Project timeline tracking Spend by provider location

Build your workforce online:

Post your job or RFP in minutes:

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Elance has the world's simplest and most powerful RFP engine: you can publish your job to thousands of qualified contractors and start reviewing proposals within hours.

Choose how you want to work:

Statement of Work: milestones, escrow, and weekly status reports keep fixed price projects on track.

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Hourly: automated time-tracking and Work View let you see hourly work in real-time. Screenshots streamed to the workroom let you see how things are progressing or verify each hour billed.

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Secure payments with zero overhead:

Our payment platform makes paying contractors simple and efficient. Fund your account by ACH, Wire, or Credit Card. Many enterprise clients also have PO relationships with Elance.

Guaranteed work:
Elance offers a new level of visibility to remote work. So much so that we guarantee you will only pay for approved results or hours.

External contractors, internal controls: Workflow visibility:

Elance supports the entire contractor lifecycle - from sourcing, to hiring, to establishing terms, to work delivery and payments, all the way through to rating with feedback; every step is documented and visible.

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Financial controls:
Work Authorization - Set approval thresholds for weekly hours worked Users and Permissions - Limit access to sensitive financial information by user role Contract Management - Maintain an auditable record of contract changes

Legal protection:
Every contractor on Elance agrees to a contract that protects both parties with default provisions including:

Intellectual property protection for the client Ownership rights assigned to the client upon payment Worker relationship classified as "Work-for-Hire"

CONCLUSION: Elance is an effective way to outsource the employees and resultantly it increase the productivity of the company and reduces unemployment from the economy.

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