comment on elance.com, guru.com is better

http://www.amazon.com/Elance-com/dp/B00006DWI5

not all positive service comments.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-1566.html

Since they charge a monthy fee for service providers, they also screwed them.

I've have tried both. I've stuck with Guru.com, because I feel the organization is there for the benefit of freelancers. I also like the tools that Guru.com provides, such as their simple billing tool. To cap it off, Guru.com if free. They charge extra for "value-added services" such as insurance.

Elance.com is much different beast. First off, you pay and pay a pretty hefty amount. (At least I found the amount to be so.) Like another poster noted here, Select membership is the only way to go. The reason being, that Select providers interact with Select buyers, and Select buyers are what I term, the real deal. These are companies that have real projects, that have real budgets, etc. Otherwise what you deal with are kids placing phoney projects, or individuals looking to add rollovers to their homepages, or shady businesses looking for want amounts to an enterprise class web tool of some sort, for under $50.