Workers’ skills matched with freelance opportunities

We’ve seen a number of sites dedicated to helping companies and nonprofits tap the crowds to get work completed. Generally those have focused on small, online tasks — done either on a volunteer basis or for pay — but Irish Weedle is a new contender that opens up the possibilities even further to match skills of any kind with those who need them. Now in beta, Dublin-based Weedle is a social utility that helps both sellsumers and skilled professionals get found by people who need their talents on a freelance basis. Users of the free site begin by creating a skill page that advertises their abilities for all the world to see. Weedle then leverages social media and semantic technologies along with its own search and social graph algorithm to match up skills and needs effectively. Accordingly, companies and individuals in need of such skills can then find them through the site, along with an overview of what connections they have in common with the individual and what peer reviews he or she has received so far. Current users of the site span the globe, representing a wide variety of professions and capabilities. We can’t help but think that Weedle would benefit by narrowing its focus — by niche, location or both. Nevertheless, it’s one more testament to the power of the “labour as a service” crowdsourcing trend — which, of course, suits today’s sellsumer masses to a tee. (Related: Work site divides large jobs into small, concurrent tasks — Online marketplace for $5 tasks — Job marketplace for quick online tasks — Matching students with odd jobs.) Spotted by: Jonathan Kyle