Rent A Coder

A friend pointed out to me that I should have mentioned the online labor marketplace Rent A Coder in my Wired article. Rent A Coder is exactly what it sounds like, a service that allows programmers from around the world to bid on any bit of high-tech piecework posted on the company’s site. It’s also an excellent example of how effective crowdsourcing networks are in tech fields, where people can work – indeed flourish – outside the framework of the firm or academic institution.

According to the company’s own data, over 140,000 programmers and 55,000 buyers use the service, and roughly 11,000 projects are completed every month. Payment is held in escrow until the client is happy with the product. Most of the jobs presumably consist of rote programming tasks, but any way you cut it this represents a considerable volume of commissions that otherwise would have gone to professional firms through traditional channels.

So can Rent A Coder produce quality equaling what a professional might deliver? The answer could well be no. The next question – raised by an article in British newspaper The Independent – is "Does that matter?" In the piece, by Clint Witchalls, the author used Rent A Coder to find someone to design his Web site. He received 63 bids before settling on a coder named Luke in New Mexico that completed the job for $60, and even through in a tutorial to boot.

Witchalls then went to a London-based Web design agency to see what they charge to create a comparable Web site. “’The simplicity of the site’s design and functionality suggests that it was delivered on a very small budget,’” the agency’s marketing manager sniffed. “Our author clients generally invest between pounds 1,000 and pounds 5,000 [roughly $2,000 to $10,000] for … their personal Websites.”

Witchalls spent about $150 for the development and hosting of his site, which is a little less than 2 percent of the larger figure quoted by the London firm. His site won’t win any Webbies, he concedes, but it suits his purposes just fine. That disparity in cost is about as pronounced as that between iStockPhoto’s licenses and that offered by traditional stock houses, and it’s not too off from the difference between producing a half-hour of scripted network TV and producing 30 minutes of VH1’s Web Junk 20. I’m hoping to use this site to gather more examples, and eventually tease out the common elements among these otherwise disparate cases.

Comments

[Jeff Howe]

test. this is only a test.

[TheRaven]

Yes, but it has always been possible to get poorly designed websites created for a few dollars. Nothing new here.

My own website creates my brand, and my business. It cost the equivalent of $10,000 as I built it myself and this is what the equivalent amount of my time would cost. Was my time worth it? Every penny. Customers and other designers compliment the design, and people think, having seen it, that I am far more established in my business than I actually am.

Could I have done this with a $64, $1000, $4000 website. Not on your life.

[Darren]

Rent a Coder sounds great - but check out TopCoder.com. Rather than setting up the project on a per-bid basis, TopCoder has turned its now famous global programmer tourneys into a forum for getting development done.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060101/handson-global.html
The company initially used its tournaments to turn hackers into celebrities and then building a community and a rating system around it. Now, they can float more sophisticated projects to the community and get top talent to submit solutions essentially for free. (The programmers/designers can beef up their ratings based on the peer reviews even of they don't win the tourney.)
Perhaps this mode wouldn't work as well for web design, but think about it: rather than sorting out a project based on the bid, you get to pick the best submitted solution for the fixed cost of the prize your ponied up to host the tournament.

[tonyd]

I've never used rent a coder, but I have some experience with other online talent auctions, particularly with Elance (elance.com). While these can be good resources both for buyers and sellers, they are only so useful. In the my business (writing and Web design), I've found Elance to be good:

1) for clients looking for bargain services
2) for beginning talent trying to scrape their first clients together
3) for offshore outsourcers to build up volume

That said, I have also seen advertisments seeking that one special person to work on a unique project-- documentary films and small press books for example. So these kinds of resources might be a way to find talent who are interested in your special project.