Internet Business Blog

Here’s a tip for anyone hiring a freelancer; don’t part with any money until you get solid evidence that progress has been made on your project.

After recently completing a project with one freelancer, I’ve just had to fire another. Why? Well, to begin with, all seemed well. Although he didn’t have much feedback, what he did have was very good and the bid he tendered for my project seemed to be good value being neither the cheapest nor the most expensive.

The programmer communicated well during the bidding and initial stages of the project. His grasp of English suggested that it was his first language and being able to communicate easily is a huge benefit to any project. He asked questions about the requirements and was able to offer suggestions for improvements.

It wasn’t until well into the project schedule that cracks started to appear…

First, there was a sudden lack of email updates even though I’d stressed that I preferred to keep in regular contact if only to confirm that the project was still progressing as planned, then came the excuses about computers blowing up, being forced to use Internet cafes and other personal problems.

I can appreciate that the unexpected can happen, but in my opinion, it’s unprofessional to let personal matters dominate a working relationship and to leave the customer wondering about the state of their project. After all, I was depending upon him to complete the project and he wasn’t aware of what the effect of it not being completed on time was.

Things then came to a bit of a head when he emailed to say that the work was complete, that he would package up his work and email it in the morning. The ‘next morning’ stretched on for more than a week and eventually a reply came suggesting that his email had gotten lost in the ether some how. I suggested he upload the work and then email a link to me to download. He agreed it was a good idea, but that he needed reassurance so I submitted payment for his work into escrow.

More than a week went by without any contact so I raise a dispute and got my escrow payment refunded.

Next time, I will want to see actual progress!

Technorati Tags: Freelance, ScriptLance, time wasters, project management

Adblock Plus is currently the one of a number of Firefox add-on recommended by mozilla.org and it’s not difficult to see why. As well as being faced with potentially thousands of advertisements in their daily lives, website visitors also face an increasing amount of distraction from core content as more websites become monetised.

Using some form of ad blocking software can make for a more pleasant browsing experience, but there are those who take issue with having the ads on their websites being blocked whilst their content is freely consumed. Whilst I’ve participated in discussions about visitors viewing ads as recompense for the webmaster’s efforts, I hadn’t seen anyone actually take action to discourage it until now.

Danny Carlton has taken a very active stance against ads on his websites being blocked by users of the Adblock Plus plugin. In fact, Danny has taken it even further than just blocking these users and blocked all Firefox users completely from his websites.

If you’re an Adblock Plus user, how would you feel about being blocked from a website that opposed your blocking of their ads?

Try www.articlewagon.com in your Adblocking Firefox browser and you’ll be presented with the following instead of the regular website content.

This page cannot be displayed because ad blocking software has been detected.

I can appreciate the argument against ad blockers, but I also appreciate how much they can improve user experience. I’ll admit that I use the Adblock Plus Firefox add-on. Not only do I find it improves my general browsing experience by removing the more annoying ads, but it also prevents me from accidentally clicking on my own ads. There are even a few websites for which if it wasn’t for Adblock Plus I wouldn’t be able to bear them at all.

As an ad publisher, does it bother me that people might be evading ads shown on my websites? No, because I don’t rely on ads being seen in any way. I am a Google AdSense publisher, but I’m not dependent upon the income it brings in.

Let’s not forget that there are other forms of advertising that aren’t as intrusive, aren’t as easily blocked and aren’t rendered useless if they were to be blocked. Take Text Link Ads for example, the ‘ads’ are simply text-based links with no reference made to any central website (such as the TLA website itself) so they can’t be blocked by looking for a common denominator unless all links are blocked. Even if they were able to be blocked, they would still be visible to search engine spiders and still provide value to the advertisers in the form of link popularity.

Since the AdBlock detection process relies on JavaScript, simply disabling JavaScript using the Web Developer add-on for Firefox renders the blocking harmless and allows the visitor to view any pages that use such countermeasures.

So is ad blocking akin to stealing? Are people whose browsers are unable to render adverts (e.g. they use a screen reader because they’re disabled in some way) thieves because they consume content without ads?

I understand the concept of going into a shop and paying for goods, but if a website doesn’t make it clear that the non-blocking of ads is a requirement for usage then what’s a visitor to do? If visitors aren’t first made to agree to view ads as compensation for content consumption, are they really stealing when they don’t?

Personally, I think that preventing people who use adblocking software from visiting a website is short-sighted. Webmasters should be looking to diversify their website monetisation methods so that they withstand the shortcomings of each individual method and bolster each other.

Do you use an ad blocker? How do you feel about stealing from people? If you’re an advertiser or an ad publisher, how do you feel about people deliberately blocking your ads?

Technorati Tags: Danny Carlton, Adblock Plus, Google AdSense, personal crusade

Freelancing can be a great way for developers to earn a full-time income or just earn some extra pocket money to supplement their jobs. There are a number of established websites where everyday, people offer opportunities for the right candidate.

My experience as one of those people looking for the right candidate often meets with frustration as bidders fail to impress upon me that they’re the right person for the job.

Here are some of the things that turn me off a potential bid:

• The bidder offers a generic response to the project e.g. “Can do this!” or “We’re ready to start this” or “We are XYZ. We’ve done this, that and the other”. What are you ready to start? Don’t try to over-impress me with your past accomplishments; tell me what you can do for me and my project.
• The bid is at the top-end of the scale without any justification as to why. It’s difficult to choose such a bid especially if it’s made by a freelancer with no previous feedback. I want someone who knows how to get the job done. Engaging someone with a lack of experience just adds to the amout of work I have to do.
• Placing a bid, but then failing to respond to follow-up questions. Why show interest and then ignore me?
• The bidding period isn’t over, but the freelancer will continue to hound me to pick them. I have all I need from you for now. Give me time to make my decision.

Here are some of the things that sway me in the direction of choosing a particular bid:

• The freelancer has a history of good feedback on similar projects. This shows me that they’ve experience in the field that I’m interested in and have demonstrated they can work with project managers.
• The freelancer demonstrates that they’ve taken the time to understand the project requirements and offer some suggestions for improvements or points out things to watch out for. This is going the extra mile to show that you’re really interested in my project.
• A demonstration is provided before the end of the bidding period. If a freelancer can show that they’ve got what I want then it makes it very easy for me to pick them as the winning bidder.

It’s hard to escape from the relationship factor when it comes to business. Establishing a good working, business relationship can be very similar to any other relationship.

Frankly, if freelancers treated the bidding process more as a date then they’d probably be a lot more successful at winning the projects they wanted.

Technorati Tags: Freelance, Scriptlance, Elance, Rentacoder

Back in February of this year, I launched a keyword tool that I’d developed to help save me time setting up Google AdWords campaigns. Rather than some of the grand launches you can see from a mile off, Keyword Permutator (KP) trickled onto the Internet with little promotional effort on my part.

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Running a web design business as a sole proprietor means that most of the day-to-day revolves around me. Whilst I may outsource some of the work, interacting with clients remains my sole responsibility.

This responsibility includes answering any client queries as well as managing the development of projects. Along with this responsibility comes the requirement to be online and contactable even when I’m out of the office.
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