This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(May 2021) |
Type of business | Public company |
---|---|
Type of site | Freelance marketplace |
Available in | English, German, French, Indonesian, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Filipino, Dutch |
Traded as | ASX: FLN |
Founded | 2009 |
Headquarters | Freelancer Level 20 680 George Street Sydney, Australia |
Area served | Worldwide |
Founder(s) | Matt Barrie |
CEO | Matt Barrie |
Key people | Matt Barrie, CEO Neil Katz, CFO Peter Phillips, VP Eng Chris Koch, Deputy CFO |
Industry | Online Outsourcing |
Employees | 470 (March 2016) |
URL | www |
Registration | Required |
Users | 59,961,774 (June 22, 2022) |
Launched | 2009 |
Current status | Active |
Freelancer is an Australian freelance marketplace website, which allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can then bid to complete. Founded in 2009, its headquarters is located in Sydney, Australia, though it also has offices in Vancouver, London, Buenos Aires, Manila, and Jakarta. [1]
Freelancer is a marketplace where employers and employees are able to find each other. The site allows employers to post work for site members who place bids in a competitive tender process. The site also allows members to host and enter contests for which prize money is offered as a reward. Freelancers and employers develop profiles on the site as they offer, win and complete work and write and receive reviews of people they work with or for. The site's members receive a finite number of bids to use on the site, which are periodically replenished. A series of account options are offered, ranging from free accounts through to professional subscriptions.
Freelancer takes a 10% fee, which can be reduced with paid monthly membership, with a minimum fee of $5. [2]
Most of Freelancer's users come from India, the United States, Philippines, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, but it is represented through its user network in 247 countries, regions and territories; and in both emerging and developed markets. The top three job categories that most frequently get job requests are IT and software, 34%; design, media and architecture, 31%; and writing and content, 13%. The company has offices in Manila, Philippines; Sydney, Australia; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; Buenos Aires, Argentina; London, United Kingdom; and Jakarta, Indonesia. [1] [3]
Freelancer has acquired several crowdsourcing marketplaces including Get A Freelancer.com and EUFreelance.com (founded by Magnus Tibell in 2004, Sweden), [4] Scriptlance.com (founded by Rene Trescases in 2001, Canada) [5] - one of the early pioneers in freelancing, Freelancer.de Booking Center (Germany), Freelancer.co.uk (United Kingdom), [6] Webmaster-talk.com (USA), a forum for webmasters, [7] and vWorker (founded by Ian Ippolito, USA). [8]
As of 29 March 2016, the company has set up 44 regional marketplaces and operates in 34 languages and 21 currencies. [9] India [10] [11] and Latin America. [12] On 2 April 2014, Freelancer acquired Ukraine based digital content marketplace-Fantero. [13]
In April 2014, Freelancer acquired The Warrior Forum, a marketing community site, for $3.2M [14]
In April 2015, Freelancer acquired Escrow.com, a provider of Internet escrow services based in the United States. [15]
In December 2016, the company acquired Brazilian job market service Prolancer as well as Spanish career marketplace Nubelo. [16]
Freelancer has taken steps to enter the freight marketplace business through their subsidiary Frieghtlancer.com. In 2018, Freelancer acquired Australian enterprise marketplace Channel 40, which connects freight owners with transport operators. In May 2021, the company acquired Loadshift, a business that connects shippers and carriers in heavy transport services. [17]
In December 2015, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) found Freelancer at fault for breaching the Privacy Act by violating the privacy rights of a former user and awarded that individual $20,000 in aggravated damages when Freelancer employees publicly exposed on Wikipedia and elsewhere the individual's private information, IP addresses, pseudonyms and other details after the individual wrote several critical comments and personal blog posts about the company. OAIC further ordered Freelancer to issue a written apology to the individual and for staff to undergo additional training on the handling of sensitive personally identifiable information. Spokespersons speaking on behalf of the company expressed their intent to appeal the ruling. [18] [19] [20]
In March 2018 it was reported that Freelancer is facing another complaint with the OAIC. Claiming damages over $60,000 a complainant from the European Union alleges Freelancer's conduct in regard to privacy is in violation of Australian and European privacy legislation alike, a fact that would affect all of Freelancer's European customers, according to the complaint. Freelancer has not commented on the allegation. [21] [22]
Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., also known as RGF outside Japan, is a Japanese human resources company. It was founded as "Daigaku Shimbun Koukokusha" in 1960 as an advertisement company that specialized in university newspapers. It owns the job search engine Indeed and the employer review site Glassdoor.
LinkedIn is a business and employment-focused social media platform that works through websites and mobile apps. It was launched on May 5, 2003. Since December 2016, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. The platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows jobseekers to post their CVs and employers to post jobs. From 2015 most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. LinkedIn has more than 970 million registered members from over 200 countries and territories.
GameSpot is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by GameSpot staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. It has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022.
Guru.com is a freelance marketplace. It allows companies to find freelance workers for commissioned work. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Pittsburgh, Guru was initially known as eMoonlighter.com.
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An employment website is a website that deals specifically with employment or careers. Many employment websites are designed to allow employers to post job requirements for a position to be filled and are commonly known as job boards. Other employment sites offer employer reviews, career and job-search advice, and describe different job descriptions or employers. Through a job website, a prospective employee can locate and fill out a job application or submit resumes over the Internet for the advertised position.
vWorker was an employment website that enabled companies to outsource projects and independent contractors to find work. Together with Elance, Freelancer.com, Guru.com, and Upwork, it was one of the largest global freelance marketplaces of its kind. It organized and streamlined the management of outsourced employees.
Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.
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Pinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information like recipes, home, style, motivation, and inspiration on the internet using images and, on a smaller scale, animated GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards. Created by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest, Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco.
Glassdoor is an American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, it has additional offices in Chicago, Dublin, London, and São Paulo.
Ian Ippolito is an American serial entrepreneur and the founder of numerous tech companies. He is best known as the founder of vWorker, an online portal for outsourcing computer virtual work projects. vWorker was purchased by Freelancer.com in 2013 for an undisclosed price in the millions of dollars. Ippolito is also the founder of the first open-source website and a financial investment site called The Real Estate Crowdfunding Review. As an entrepreneur, he has been featured in and provided commentary for numerous publications and media outlets including Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, as well as Fox and CBS News.
Carousell is a Singaporean smartphone and web-based consumer to consumer and business to consumer marketplace for buying and selling new and secondhand goods. Headquartered in Singapore, it also operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Carousell is available on both iOS and Android devices.
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