ODesk is great if you live in China, India or the Philippines. As a US resident, I am not able to compete with the rates advertised in these countries. Am I missing something?

Disclaimer: I am currently a member of the oDesk Support Staff. However, what I intend to share is my experience as both a provider and a buyer...

I signed up for oDesk in the fall of 2007. I began working very sporadically shortly after. By Spring of 2008 I was busier than I ever anticipated.

Using the oDesk model I was able to hire people to work with me. I have worked on both fixed rate and hourly jobs and have encountered no issues with working, with being paid or with the 'monitoring' system that so many find offensive.

As a provider I have found oDesk staff members to be helpful, offer assistance as needed. I love the fact that if I run across a questionable job opening I can flag it and oDesk will review it. I also love the guaranteed payment on hourly jobs (although I also work on a number of fixed rate jobs).

In spite of many complaints (especially from new users) about rates on oDesk, I have found most buyers are willing to negotiate a fair rate. One of my favorite things about oDesk is the fact that it encourages long term relationships between providers and buyers. I have a buyer who I am active with now who has been a client since September of 2007.

As a buyer: I love being able to manage my team inside of the oDesk system. If I need a new project done it's quick and easy to find people that I've worked with in the past and hire them again. If I am unhappy with a provider for any reason I remove them from my team and replace then quickly and easily.

As a provider and a buyer I can't imagine why anyone would go outside of oDesk to work!

Doreen

** Full Disclosure: I now work for oDesk, but my review is solely based on my prior experience as both a buyer and a provider **

For buyers:

oDesk is a great tool for both finding great providers AND managing their tasks. They offer two payment models: fixed price and hourly. If you have a small project with clear specifications and guidelines, a fixed priced job may be perfect for you. If you have a larger project with unclear specifications, or if you require consulting, hourly projects are great for that.

The benefit of fixed priced jobs is that you have complete control over when and how much to pay. Some providers request an upfront payment (which is understandable), but once the initial upfront payment has been paid, you have full control over the payment schedule. The downsides to this is that 1) if your scope of work changes over time, you may need to work out new payment structures with the provider, and 2) you do not have the added benefit of the Team client for time logging.

The benefit of hourly jobs are: time logging and progress monitoring with the Team client, long-term open-ended projects, weekly time limits, no re-negotiating with providers on changes to the scope of work. The Team client takes 6 snapshots of the provider's desktop throughout the hour, so it's easy to tell if a provider is not heading in the right direction with the assignment.

The downside is that if you do not check your timelogs/screensnaps weekly, it's possible for less than honest providers to take advantage of you. At the end of the week, you have 3 days to review timelogs and screenshots, and if the provider is obviously not working on your assignment (i.e. browsing youtube for 3 hours when youtubing is NOT part of the job description), you can dispute the time logged...but you MUST do this within the review period!

For Providers:

I have been freelancing part-time for a decade before going full-time...and I wouldn't have been able to do it without oDesk. It opened me up to 100x more clients than my local circuits.

I absolutely LOVE the billing system at oDesk. As "angryinch" mentioned in their review, I've done my fair share of "bad-debt" writeoffs, usually due to clients that disappear in the middle of the project, with nothing more than a small down payment, or worse, not satisfied with the end result and refusing to pay. With oDesk, my time is paid for, regardless, as long as my work diary shows me actively working on the client's projects (luckily, one of my early assignments actually WAS youtubing)!

Getting hired for your first assignment is tough. Luckily, I had a rich portfolio at the ready, and was able to get the first assignment after a week and a half. oDesk is an EXCELLENT resource for skilled professionals (i.e. software developers, web designers, graphic artists).

It's great! I decided to turn my back on the corporate world and take up a career as a freelance writing. If it weren't for oDesk, I couldn't have done it. After signing up and taking a few tests, I had my first job in about a week. oDesk has allowed me to pay my bills, become a professional writer, and concentrate on graduate school.

I'm a web developer and programmer, and Odesk allows me to do something that would have been very difficult without: network with literally anyone in the world instantly, with the assurance that I may bill an hourly. I don't need to verify the person is who they say they are, because the billing process is handled for me, and payment methods are registered before hand. If a person ever did decide to take off, Odesk would cover it anyway, like an insurance policy.

I think of Odesk as my agent. Although there are many aspects to the service, the most important are:

1. Find potential customers, and provide a means for those customers to find me.
2. Keep track of all my hours, and provide reporting of hours performed. Odesk is like a dual-broker in a real-estate transaction: it works for both parties, and will negotiate settlements if there is a disagreement.
3. Billing. Billing happens automatically every Monday. I have money deposited into my bank account every Thursday.

There are a lot of more advanced features as well, such as the ability to form teams, which is a growing feature that will become more popular as the idea improves. The future is going to be about a "virtual entrepreneurship" which promotes the idea that anyone may grow a company while sitting at his or her desk at home. I look forward to the years to come.

Here's what you get with oDesk that you don't get on sites like elance, rac, gaf, and whatever other bidding sites out there: PAID weekly for the TIME you put into your project...and best of all, payment is guaranteed!

None of the other job sites have the balls to offer that guarantee.

SOFTWARE: oDesk takes a lot of rap for their software and the types of jobs offered on the site. I don't mind it, though. It takes 6 screenshots per hour and counts the number of keystrokes and mouse clicks that happen for each 10-minute time span. It doesn't read my emails, it doesn't scan my hard drive for pr0n, it doesn't hijack my twitter account. Seriously, I've worked in IT departments where I had to install software that did all of that. oDesk's software is nothing compared to that, and at least oDesk tells you what they're doing with their software! All it does is counts clicks and screen captures the active monitor. I have two monitors setup so I can still watch TV and IM while working. Most experienced buyers don't even CARE about your work diary, anyway!

RATES: oDesk also takes a lot of flack for having lots of jobs with low rates. Guess what? That's life in the global market! When you shop on ebay, you look for the lowest deal, even if it's got nicks and scratches, don't you? If not, you buy brand new from the sellers with the best feedback even if it costs more, right? That's what buyers do here. It's possible to get a great first gig at oDesk WITHOUT having to take a $2/hr job, but you have to show people that you're worth it (hint: have awesome portfolio and don't spam your applications out).

PAYMENT: How many times do I have to say it's GUARANTEED! If you've been freelancing for a long time, you probably know how to write off bad debts due to non-paying clients. Or worse, you spent 3 months on a project and at the very end, the client doesn't like it and wants you to redo the whole thing before paying you the rest of the balance. oDesk pays you on hourly jobs as long as you logged your time like you're supposed to. "Properly logged time" just means let the software take its screenshots (and don't delete them for crying out loud) and label your screenshots with appropriate descriptions.

SUPPORT: This has to be one of the weaker points on oDesk, but they have some new people in support now plus a live chat option which is nice. The live chat people can't solve anything complex, but they're more meant as a first-line-of-defense...kind of like calling AT&T and talking to India until you can prove that you've already rebooted your modem and need to talk to someone in Tier 2 support for further help. They are also on Twitter and they actually follow people back and have a sense of humor. That's pretty cool. At least they're not just wasting space spamming twitter with their press releases.

FEES: oDesk takes 10% off the top. When you set your hourly rates and bid on jobs, you put in what YOU want to make, and oDesk adds their cut on top of it. There are NO UPFRONT FEES. I have abbounts at both elance and guru, but never use them because they nickel and dime you to death just to be able to apply to jobs. At oDesk, you start out with a 5/month application limit, but all you have to do to increase that is take some of their skills tests (all free).

OVER ALL: oDesk is great for veteran freelancers (especially programmers and designers) because if you already have a portfolio, and you can get long-term assignments here. oDesk is also great for new freelancers because it gives them a starting point...but one thing should be noted: if you're just starting out and have no prior work experience, you have GOT TO work hard at landing your first assignment. Laziness does NOT pay off here. Once you get that first assignment, it 100% easier!

As a freelance writer, I've done my share of trawling random web sites for work. The work on offer on some sites is so low-paid it's clear buyers don't care about quality, tone of voice or other things I hold dear, and I swiftly move on.

Other sites have strange models that limit the number of jobs you can apply for without paying some horrendous monthly fee, when a quick scroll through the opportunities makes it clear they've actually very little work in that area, no matter what the site may claim.

What I love about oDesk is that it caters to everyone in my market, from buyers of quality articles and copy to people who want quick rewrites for SEO and don't much care about spelling or grammar so long as it passes Copyscape. There truly is work for everyone out there, and it can be easily found and pitched for on oDesk. Better still, it costs me nothing to have a provider profile on oDesk: I simply quote my hourly rate when applying and oDesk put their commission on top.

Yes there's a maximum limit on how many open applications I have, but I've never hit it because I've been too busy working on jobs I've found through the site.

Of course, it's not just writing jobs that are advertised or filled on oDesk. Programmers, designers, virtual assistants and data entry clerks will all find work there, as will translators, voice-over artists and business consultants.

I have a web project I need to sort out in the next few months and have no doubt that I'll use oDesk to find a supplier, becoming a buyer myself in the process.

Truly can't recommend highly enough - if you're looking for freelance, work at home opportunities, you really need to be starting with oDesk.