oDesk and O'Reilly Partner on Globalization Mashup for Tech Skills, Rates

PALO ALTO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- November 7, 2006 -- Today oDesk (www.oDesk.com), an online marketplace for remote work, and O'Reilly Media announced a partnership to publish data and trends on the economics of the global programming workforce. An early beta version of the "oDesk Economy" website (http://beta.oDesk.com/economy) will be demonstrated at the Web 2.0 Conference this week in San Francisco, and a production version will launch in early 2007.

"As business moves online in the Web 2.0 era, we have access to an array of new data sets about our business activities. Using these newly available sources, the O'Reilly Radar team has developed new techniques to analyze and visualize emerging technology trends," said Roger Magoulas, Research Director at O'Reilly. "We've worked with Amazon to analyze data on technology book sales, with Simply Hired to analyze online tech job listings, and with Technorati to analyze blogs. Now we're pleased to partner with oDesk to get access to their data on global supply and demand for technical projects and programmer hourly rates, to find out what's hot and what's not in technology."

The oDesk Economy website will use data visualization tools developed by O'Reilly to display and identify emerging patterns of usage for programming languages and technical skills around the world. O'Reilly will analyze projects collected from thousands of contract programming and technical assignments conducted by oDesk buyers and service providers in over 50 countries.

The World is NOT Flat

"To paraphrase Thomas Friedman, the world of technology is flat -- globalization and telecommunication have created a level playing field for the global technical skills market," said Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk. "However, the hourly rates being paid for software developers with top technical skills are definitely NOT flat. At oDesk we're seeing substantial growth on our marketplace for projects using Web 2.0 programming languages like Ajax, PHP, and MySQL."

Recently tapped for an $8M investment by Benchmark Capital this past September, oDesk enables businesses of all sizes to access the worldwide market for technology expertise. The oDesk global network includes thousands of programmers, system administrators, web designers, technical writers, and QA engineers from countries around the world including Russia, Ukraine, India, and the US.

Hiring managers can search online profiles of oDesk professionals using a variety of search criteria including technical skills, hourly rate, feedback scores, tests passed, previous work history, and geography. Workers are hired online instantly, and project managers use oDesk's unique management tools to visually track and verify all work performed, both historically and in real-time. Buyers pay weekly using an hourly model for short-term and long-term projects.

About oDesk

oDesk (www.oDesk.com) is a global marketplace for programmers and technical talent that lets businesses build and manage remote teams. Hiring managers can search the oDesk network and choose from among thousands of tested, top-rated technology professionals in over 50 countries around the world. Using oDesk web-based collaboration tools, project managers can visually track and verify all work performed, both historically and in real-time. Everyday, oDesk helps people all over the world work together, as if they were seated in the same office. Founded in 2004, oDesk is located in Menlo Park, CA.

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media (www.oreilly.com) spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.