With the recent merger of oDesk and Elance, boasting a community of about eight million freelancers, it appears that the online talent marketplace is booming.

“For businesses hiring people for one-time projects in areas like software development, website design, customer service and translation, there is no longer a need to stay local. A company in New York can arrange for someone in Uzbekistan to create its website, for example. And chances are that the Uzbek worker will be willing to work for much less pay than a comparable one in New York.” – NY Times

Taking a step back, this growth is a very natural and expected evolution. Taking a proven model like contracting, then adding the scale and automation of the internet to create an accessible talent pool of 8 million workers, just makes plain sense.

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