A bit about oDesk, and props for Inside Outsource

I've posted several times about the growing list of freelance outsourcing "clearing houses."  This week, I discovered another, and possibly the most mature of these sites - oDesk.   They take an interesting approach to global outsourcing - Allow direct brokerage between people with jobs and people with talent, without the overhead of a services vendor standing in the middle of the transaction adding margin overhead.  

They have over 200,000 freelance providers bidding on jobs, and over 6000 active jobs.  The oDesk manifesto says better than I could what they do and why they do it. They've assembled a serious management and advisory team that reads like a Silicon Valley fantasy league roster.  They're on to what seems like a great idea, and I wish them much success.

The reason I found out about them is even more interesting, to me at least.  They recently published a "Top-100" list for resources and blogs for outsourcing.  They ranked the Inside Outsource blog in their top-100 list.  (I'm number 23, but the list ranking is topical and alphabetic, not hierarchic.)  That's great recognition, and certainly a dose of encouragement for me to pick up my pace and post more frequently.  Thanks oDesk, for the recognition, and I hope your readers enjoy both the archive and any future insights.