I'm voting this up because I agree there is an opportunity here, and I think you may have identified a clear need in terms of nailing the right level of transparency and simplicity to attract a mass market demographic.

That said, this isn't a fully fleshed out idea. Without that winning formula why would this be better than elance or rent-a-coder? What makes this stand out from the crowd? Other than having low fees to start, how else could you get this to scale?

eBay wasn't the first online auction site, only the first to get the formula right. I think you may be able to come up with the right formula if you give this more thought, but I'm not sure it's there just yet.

Thanks for the comments!

There is no question that this idea needs to be refined to be really successful. Don't be shy to post your suggestions!

To get the ball rolling, here are some specifics:

Visitors will be able to browse current or completed listings, or search them. Of course, the content of the work (like the text to be translated, and the translation) is private. But the nature of the work (number of pages, type of text, etc) is open, and as detailed as possible. The number of bids and lowest bid are shown. The buyer feedback rating is displayed, as well as the percentages of cases that had a dispute. That way, even a casual visitor can get a good idea of the possibilities (as a buyer or as a seller), going prices, and hopefully confidence in the system.

To list of job, you pick a category (proofreading, logo design, etc) and describe the work to be done, maybe with the help of a listing wizard. You choose the amount your are willing to pay, and prepay it using your credit card or the upcoming CH payment service. Service providers bid on the job, and at any point you can select one that you like based on their feedback rating. They submit the work, and if everything goes well, you release the payment.

If it's a small non-confidential job (like translating to Portugese a letter to your rich Brazilian uncle), you can post the whole text right away, somebody comes along and translates it, and if you are satisfied, you just release the payment. Make it fast and easy when there is no reason to make it slow and convoluted. Like this http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/1IRuwJS/ kind of job.

People who want sealed bids and secrecy are probably happy with RentaCoder or Elance. Anyway, I am thinking more of site for services rather than hard core programming contracts. But hey, not every coder likes secrecy!

Feedback is the key, like on eBay, to keep most people honest. Feedback should be categorized, unlike eBay. If you have 100 happy customers for your Russian-Chinese translation services, it doesn't mean you can design a PHP web site.

It would be nice if the sellers could showcase their previous work (a link to a web site or a logo they designed), but I don't quite see how to make that trustworthy.

The thorniest issue is dispute resolution. I propose to set aside a fraction of each payment as dispute-free bounty. If there is no dispute, or if the buyer and seller are able to resolve it on their own, they split the bounty. Otherwise, the money goes to a third party referee who reviews the case. Say the bounty is 20% of a $100 job. If all goes well, seller gets $90 and buyer gets $10 back. Otherwise, referee gets $20, seller or buyer get $80 based on the referee's decision.

What do you think ?

reading the title i though that this would extend to other services as well, and have a local dimension to it.

i've been involved with "local currency" groups, where you exchange goods and services for a currency that is only usuable in said group (i'll fix your plumbing and use the credits i earn towards buying someone elses couch).

there were limits on how large credit you could have, and how much in debt you were allowed. (some also use negative interest and other novel ideas to stimulate exchange).

anyways, that was my first interpretation of your brief, and i'm just throwing it in here to offer another way of generating revenue for participants. the way this might be commercialised would be to harness the skills of your userbase towards commercial (external) projects, out of which you'd be able to take a comission or somesuch.

alternatively, since these org have a mixed economy (i'll fix your plumbing but you'll pay for the parts in USD/EUR/YEN), you could take out a comission on any "real" currency transactions.

haven't thought this one through, just saying.

the transparency bit is good though.

I was primarily thinking about services that can be exchanged over the internet.
The local bartering system is interesting too, but has been proposed in other submissions.

Some more examples of services:
transcribing speech (dictation), typing scanned handwritten documents, proofreading, editing photos, editing home movies (sent by mail), making custom Christmas photo cards, etc.

Tax advice
Some legal services
(both by duly licensed professionals of course)

there is a few of these ideas in CH

Nice idea. I think the concept of ratings is a powerful medium, and provides the usual "trusted relationship" in the absence of one on the internet.

It also makes sense from a 'long tail' point of view. In theory market niches to a global audience are key are unlimited by normal boundaries, although the service model is often constrained by the capacity of those workers!

Pricing could be interesting if it was made into an international business. For example, if you marketed the site to "suppliers"/"service providers" in India for some of these services, they could receive USD/CAD/NZD, and still be cheaper than local. It would be a brave person to be the first adopter to try such services!

I read somewhere the other day that this new global service economy and outsourcing trend is akin to the industrial revolution in terms of the impact on the way businesses operate, governments educate and the way overall international trade operates.

I suggested an idea like this a wile ago.

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/Xko9caF/

People seem to think that is has been done... I still don't think so

]V[oogy

Sweet!

I've personally used oDesk on several occasions (similar to this idea) and I didn't find it clunky at all - it was awesome! I got tons of replies, had a great final project at a ridiculously low price, and they auto-uploaded live webcam shots taken of the person working while I was charged.

Not to discount the idea, but my point is that you'd have to come up with something *really* special to disrupt the market leaders in this space.

great idea

great idea

great idea

i Didnt get it, though some of of the services you mentioned had been submitted here already.
Why at ebay? Cant it stand in another flatform or site you can develop say under a "CHcreativeservices.com" or something (oops am preselling an IDEA again sorry Doymarn).

Its my 2 cents of opinion ok?

I believe it is a great idea. Check out:
http://www.thembid.com/

They recently received funding.

Interesting idea. I'll be checking back on this one! =]

the lowest price is never the best.... look at all those remodel shows

homes on homes?

Has potential.
Tommy

Erm. Isn't this service already available on eBay?

"If it's a small non-confidential job (like translating to Portugese a letter to your rich Brazilian uncle), you can post the whole text right away, somebody comes along and translates it, and if you are satisfied, you just release the payment."

so this wil under wiki agian?..and suseptible to some abuse headache again? imagine if someone have the time to play prank and have your valuable time get wasted?

Isn't this Amazon's Mechanical Turk? http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

you may want to look at http://www.freelance4hire.com and http://www.getafreelancer.com.

The dutch eBay look-a-like already has this feature (http://www.marktplaats.nl/)

Yeah... thembid...

Did you improved this from last time?

... huh... why can we vote again for this idea... or did I missed something?

memory problem... I thought I had commented on this before.

Basically, yeah, why not. You are putting your own spin on an existing product. So, you need to take a good detailed look at the features of the others in the field and decide which features you will drop, keep, improve upon. (Product design).

You've done some of that already.

Bottom line, you are going to have to attract traffic to this service. Promotion of your product will be critical to success.

tournesol: i failed to remember your original idea pitch and details..but how was this different from the last time?

what additional transparency are you seeking that's not currently provided by Elance? I see dollar amts of bids on projects by contractors...
agreed w/ cougar- there has to be something extremely compelling about this to compete w/ oDesk & Elance... curious what you believe that is.

sean

I'm not familiar with many of the other sites mentioned, but this one sounds good and I'd use it. Sometimes you don't even have to be better than the competition, just better-known!

You can all ready do this and companies all ready do this all the time. They post a project and get people to bid on it. I don't know if there is a need.

Thank you all for your comments.
I have refined the description a bit.

about Amazon Mechanical Turk: definitely not for end-users. Great to build businesses on top though.

I use guru.com. I think you need to be able to evaluate the service provider, so you can not just take the cheapest bid.

Once you get in to the evaluation and the understanding of the project it gets to be like the elances and gurus.

Here in The Netherlands we have such a service called 'Zoek een mannetje!' (Find a contractor!). It's available at http://www.zoekeenmannetje.nl/ and can be used to find all kinds of people from baby sitters to carpenters. Good luck with your idea.

There's also:

http://rentacoder.com

and many similar sites already doing quite a bit of business.

the idea is great ... however freelance site are already offering this stuff. You might also want to check out the Amazon Mech Turk

Another interesting model I came across was a staffing company (I think PyramidResources) that primarliy provided developers from India to start ups here at a very affordable cost (around $15/hr).
They were different from market places like Guru or Elance because the people are already verified and assured to be of high quality; plus they had developers that were willing to work with stock options too. They were differentiating themselves by providing quality talent instead of just a market place where there is not much control on who is bidding on a project.

The idea has been done. See http://www.rentacoder.com

The site is supposed to be for technical free lance work, but there is also a big inlfux of other tasks like translation and writing.

Oops, just saw JoeMerchant's post. Sorry for the double info.

How has this idea Changed since it was last here?