What are the top freelancer jobs?
By Bala Shah

International website Freelancer has expanded outsourcing to a micro level. To date, over 890,000 projects have been posted on Freelancer, from projects as simple as designing a website ($200) or logo design ($30) through to as obscure as designing a functional Dune Buggy ($268) and composing a Rap song to help Chinese students learn English ($102).  It is a huge hit in India.

In Jan, 2011,  Techgoss had profiled an Indian freelancer who had earned more than $922,716 from Freelancer alone.

Freelancer.com has released its quarterly (Freelancer Fast 50) report of the 50 fastest moving online job categories and one thing is for sure - the tech boom is back and it's affecting online jobs in a major way. This quarter, 109,733 jobs were accounted for in the survey providing a unique insight into small business and developer interest.

The Top 3 trends of the Freelancer Fast 50 Q1 2011 are:

Android on pace to eclipse Apple by end of 2012 - The most noticeable digital labor shift this quarter was, that despite solid growth in iPhone jobs (they are up 9% from 2739 to 2985), Android work continues to outpace Apple. Android jobs are up a solid 20% going from 1419 to 1702 jobs, placing Android in the top five absolute movers in the Freelancer Fast 50. If Android work continues at this growth rate, it will surpass the iPhone category by the end of 2012. On the whole the market for mobile jobs is very strong, the Mobile Phone category having risen by 12%.

HTML5 is a monster - This quarter again marks a massive gain for HTML5 work. Going from 604 projects in Q1 to 807 in Q2. The 34% increase places HTML5 firmly at the top of the Freelancer Fast 50 poised to be a job-generating leader for the foreseeable future. This news comes fresh off the recent Arcade Fire win at Cannes with their HTML5 video for The Wilderness Downtown.

The rise of HTML5 has reinforced the downfall of Flash, once the powerhouse of online work. Flash work dropped 10% to 3095 jobs posted this quarter however it is yet to be determined what impact Google Swiffy will have on Flash projects. Only time will tell.

Black-buried? - While the mobile job market on the whole is booming, weak BlackBerry job figures countered this trend. BlackBerry jobs fell by 6% from 526 to 497 jobs, despite the recent venture into the tablet domain. Launched on April 19, 2011, the PlayBook was one of the most anticipated mobile computing products of 2011 and intended to be BlackBerry’s answer to the iPad. Despite initially strong sales figures, recent data shows that the device is suffering. While BlackBerry’s ‘App World’ has been live since 2009 and boasts over 37,000 apps, public interest is bordering on nonexistent.

The Freelancer Fast 50 data is consistent with the Canadian manufacturer, Research in Motion’s recent decision to lay off staff anticipating weak profits for Q2. Having held first place with 35 percent of the market (according to comScore data) in October last year, BlackBerry has now been bumped down to third place with 25 percent in April 2011 and it looks like the worst is yet to come.

Who are the winners and losers? Microsoft jobs numbers were again abysmal this quarter, with Windows CE (-42%), Windows Desktop (-30%) and Windows Mobile (-16%) jobs figures so low, they did not qualify for inclusion in the Freelancer Fast 50. .Net did however make it into the list, plummeting 7% down to 2850 jobs posted while ASP remained stagnant at 1132 jobs posted in both Q1 and Q2. Telemarketing, the job that is traditionally associated with outsourcing suffered a massive drop, going from 1169 jobs to 933, a drop of 20%. This demonstrates that as technology changes so does the way companies market their products.

To this end, Facebook fan page development showed consistent growth going from 4297 to 4622 jobs, a jump of 8%. This growth will continue as companies look to supplement their traditional websites with extensive social media in an attempt to engage consumers.

The big news from last quarter was that Google Panda had put a severe dent in writing categories, most noticeably article submission, copywriting and ghostwriting projects. These categories have continued to decline (albeit at a slower rate) however academic writing rose by 14% this quarter and report writing enjoyed a 6% jump.
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In light of eBay’s mid March funding and then June 6th acquisition of Magento, it is no surprise that this endorsement has given the popular eCommerce platform a major boost. Magento went from1153 jobs in Q1 to 1301 in Q2, an increase of 13%. This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that job numbers for competitor Volusion are so low it renders them statistically irrelevant.