
Freelancer.com Pays $3.2M To Buy Digital Marketing Marketplace, Warrior Forum - malditojavi
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/15/freelancer-buys-warrior-forum/
======
downandout
I'm sure that Freelancer.com did their due diligence, but as a mere user of
this and other marketing forums I don't see how this valuation makes sense.
The site's primary source of revenue is the percentage it takes from WSO sales
- "Warrior Special Offers". These are normally rehashed guides with such
useful information as how to put Adsense on your site, with titles like "Make
$300/day on Autopilot!". WSO's are the butt of jokes on other Internet
marketing forums, as they are usually nonsense. Some other forums actually
have sections dedicated to quickly throwing together useless WSO's with
attractive titles, creating fake reviews, and getting them sold through
Warrior Forum.

Definitely not an acquisition I would have made.

~~~
MicroBerto
As someone who got wayyyyy too heavily involved into the whole "internet
marketing" scene a few years back, I can confirm the sentiments above.

In my eyes, Freelancer just simultaneously paid millions of dollars for an
obnoxious digital _wasteland_ while devaluing their own brand by associating
themselves with these clowns.

I can honestly say I have never, and will never, use Freelancer. Especially
now.

~~~
genericacct
As if they weren't devalued enough by their habit of accepting completely
illegal and immoral projects (i saw tons of requests for filipino camgirls and
carding/cracking activities)..

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capex
I once joined Freelancer.com. Oh boy, what an experience it was. First off,
there is a free plan for freelancers, but you should be paying ~$24 to get
things going.

The second is charging money for tests, charging money for showing up as
featured, and various other tactics to get money out of freelancers. I moved
out as soon as I could.

~~~
mattbarrie
Where did this $24 number come from? It's free to sign up and bid on projects
and we charge a 10% commission for freelancers on a free plan only when you
accept.

What's wrong with a fee to make a project featured? Ebay does this.

We charge for tests so people don't game them by writing down all the answers.

------
fest
/non-related rant ahead

From a perspective of person who is (pro)actively looking for more work,
freelancer.com is full of projects along the veins of "write me some
software". It does not make sense to even bother applying to projects like
that, as the time spent writing an application letter exceeds potential
income.

~6 years ago I did a fair number of small projects on rentacoder.com - the
quality of average project description was much higher (did they do any
vetting on incoming projects?).

odesk.com on the other hand has a lot more projects whose authors understand a
thing or two about how software development works (i.e. reasonable project
description among other things).

~~~
mattbarrie
Hi fest

I'n the Chief Executive of Freelancer.com.

The employers from RAC are all on Freelancer - and they are a lot more active
than they were on the old site (which had a use interface from 1995 and was
very difficult to use).

Regards Matt

~~~
josourcing
You're going to need to name names if anyone's going to believe you. I've only
seen ONE employer from RAC at your scamtablishment. Perhaps exaggeration is
your strong point?

~~~
mattbarrie
Ah, I know who you are now. We had a conversation when we acquired RAC because
you wrote that book "Outsourcing Through RentACoder" and were upset we shut
the site down.

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pulmo
The last time I checked Warrior Forum was basically a marketplace for
scammsters scamming newbies and selling scam paraphernalia. Long term value?
Make 50.000 bucks in 10 days and get the Ultimate Master Traffic Money Maker
for free!

~~~
dirktheman
I'm always amused by these Internet Marketers selling Internet Marketing
Strategies to Internet Marketers. The whole site is basically an enclosed
ecosystem of people selling and buying each others stuff.

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marcomassaro
Somebody needs to make an elance, odesk, freelance competitor that is private
- contractors or companies need to apply and be pre-vetted to be on the site
for design/dev and projects posted are above a minimum budget threshold.

~~~
poopsintub
A country specific version of freelancer was an idea after I couldn't get a
gig against every other third world country bidding on what seemed to be the
same project with multiple accounts. Since it seems there were few and far
American accounts bidding compared to other countries, "American only" struck
me as something that would be useful as a developer. Though, I'm pretty sure
people go there to pay insanely cheap prices. If they want to pay $100+ hour
for experience and high quality, they would find a local company and meet with
them. It's not like Angie's list where you're going to pay more or less the
same price and you can filter out who you want to chose.

~~~
octopus
_I couldn 't get a gig against every Indian and other third world country
scamming the system with 10 accounts a piece_

I'm not Indian, but some HN readers may find offensive that you equate Indian
with scammer.

~~~
poopsintub
Edited. I didn't intend to be offensive. I feel the system is flawed and can
be manipulated by anyone. The vast majority of bidders seems to be outside of
America.

~~~
octopus
_I feel the system is flawed and can be manipulated by anyone._

This is, unfortunately, true. You can however make some money on Freelancer if
you offer quality and keep your prices at a medium level.

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josourcing
Proof that Barrie doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He just bought a
bunch of scammers! But then, seeing how Freelancer.com is a scam in itself, it
all seems very clear now.

~~~
mattbarrie
Only enough to have the largest user base and the fastest growing site in the
industry.. and the only publicly listed.

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rootuid
[http://warriorforumsucks.com/](http://warriorforumsucks.com/) There is money
to be made milking the vulnerable.

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whoismua
Not to diminish the work that goes into building a successful forum (most
fail), but that's a nice out. With the right strategy it can even FU money.

