May 03

Microsoft Launches Preview of Task Market to “Get More Done”

Posted in: Microsoft, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on May 30, 2008 by CyberNet.

Have you ever been working in Excel and you knew there was a complex formula you could use to makes things easier but you just couldn’t think of (or didn’t know) how to do it? Or maybe you were designing a brochure and you needed some help with the graphics or formatting. Where would you go to get the help for either of those situations and would it be worth paying for? Microsoft is hoping you’ll turn to their new Task Market, a site currently in the “Preview” stage that will allow people who have a task they need to accomplish, find people that will be able to help them with those tasks. In a way it reminds me of the former Google Answers and Rentacoder.com, both sites that accept(ed) money from people who need(ed) to get something done with the help of someone else.

The key things that tasks have on the Task Market site include:

  • something that can be done for $20 to $500
  • something that the task poster could use help doing
  • something that can be delivered electronically, like a Microsoft Office document

If you take a look at the site found at www.taskmarket.com, you’ll notice that it’s actually got a pretty nice interface, and it’s easy to find jobs, post jobs, and if you’re working on completing jobs, viewing the ones that you’ve accepted.

Task Market.png

Microsoft says,

For every person who throws up both hands at the prospect of creating a complex formula in Microsoft Excel, somewhere in the world there’s another person who can make it look easy. For every poor proofreader, there’s an expert one out there who wouldn’t mind making a few extra dollars. For every small business owner who doesn’t have time to do background research on a new business prospect, there’s a talented researcher who could quickly put together a dossier.

The big idea with Task Market is this: create a viable market to get them together and things get done.

Those people who are “solvers” are able to create profiles that list the skills that they have and when someone posts a task that needs to be completed that fills their skill-set, they’ll receive an email. Each member on the site, both those who post and solve jobs, have a “reputation”, a system based on five stars where people can rate the jobs that they posted, and those that they solved. For task solvers, their profile will display how long it typically takes them to solve a job.

Because it has just launched into a preview, there are not too many jobs available(it’s free to post a job) but with time, we think this could turn into a place where people will willingly go, to get help with what they need. It could also be a great place for those who have the skills, to make some extra money.

Go check it out and let us know what you think. It’s at www.taskmarket.com.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:


No Responses to “Microsoft Launches Preview of Task Market to “Get More Done””

Post a Comment