Reference Designer

I just learned that Solvate  raised $2.3 million from DFJ Gotham Ventures and RRE Ventures in its first round of institutional funding.  Thanks Anand for pointing that out.

What does Solvate do

Solvent helps you solve your problems by finding the right person to do your job. It connects project posters and those executing the project. Solvatem as its name suggests helps you solve your problems.

How does it works

Solvate helps you to get your work done at a cheaper rate using outsourcing, You need to tell Solvate what jobs you need done. Solvate then finds the right person for the task. It takes up the responsibility. It looks like it does the complete project management.

What does it costs

It is not very clear what are the charges involved. It looks like solvent charges with a base rate of $25 an hour. That also looks like the minimum rate. You are charged in the increments of 5 minutes.

There ate a number of ways you can connect the company. It can me email, phone or eben filling out a request form; You can then log into the Solvate website to see how the work is progressing.

Solvate Team
According to its website

Founded in 2007 and based in New York City, Solvate exists to help people make the most of their precious time. For business owners and executives who need on-demand administrative support, Solvate is a micro-staffing company that makes it easy to delegate busy work to professionals across the country. It is our mission to build trusted relationships between our clients and the Solvate Timesmiths who work for them remotely.

Michael Paolucci is the CEO of solvate.

So any Alternative

eZdia is a strong alternative to Solvate. At the time of writing solvate has an alexa ranking of just 559K while ezdia has an alexa ranking of 166K ( Both data are 3 months average). With the venture capital in hand and more marketing funds available, solvate is expected to fare better in immediate near future. However, ezdia has much wider range of functionality that is expected to become available in one to three months from now. The solvate executive team has a proven track records and that helped them secure venture capital. In the end what matters is – what we deliver to the customer. It will be interesting to note how ezdia compares with solvate three months from now.

Uncategorized ezdia

Today we will discuss, what is Lawbench and how does it work ? If you are a lawyer willing to provide your services online, this article may be very useful to you. This is also useful to persons who are willing to take lawyer’s service online

So shat is Lawbench?

At Lawbench.com users can ask questions to particular lawyer on the panel, and the lawyers answer the questions asked of them.  Users can also request a quick phone consultation with a lawyer directly from Lawbench.

So how does Lawbench work?

At lawbench.com a user can ask short, specific immigration-related questions to one or more lawyers on the panel, using the Ask a Lawyer page. User must pre-pay a fee for asking a question using paypal or credit card.  Use need to pay $2 extra if he wants to keep the question confidential. The questions and answers are in the form of a web-based forum, much like a discussion forum. Users can also request 20-minute, 40-minute, and 60-minute phone consultations.

Ss soon as your question is submitted, it gets assigned to the lawyer you selected.  The question is answered withing 2 business days. Usually in lesser time.  You may ask one follow-up question to the lawyer, in case there are further clarifications to be made and the clarifications are related to the original question. Do not ask unrelated questions in a follow-up. Lawyers are not obligated to respond to follow-ups, but they typically do.

How much it costs

Take a look at the screen shot to see how much it costs

If you want to talk for longer than 20 minutes the cost is $99 for 40 minutes and $149 for 60 minutes

How do lawyers join

Lawyers can join lawbench by contacting lawbench. The website does not specify how much it charges to the lawyers. The lawbench website does not specify how much does it charge from the lawyers.

The eZdia Solution

ezdia allows users to connect to the lawyers. At ezdia you do not need to specify time in 20 minute format. Many times user need to chat or talk for a very small amount of time – like 5 minutes or 10 minutes. In that case he chats with the lawyer. The lawyer specifies his rate in dollars per minute. So, if the lawyer charges $1.50 per minute and user chats for 6 minutes the user needs to pay only $9.00

Benefit to the lawyers at ezdia

eZdia make the things very efficient for the lawyers especially for small jobs for the lawyer.  At present the lawyers receptionist collect the information about the client and the charges  prior to the meeting time. Often small attorney’s office are not able to keep a full time receptionist staff these days as corporate h1b/green card filings are low and immigration attorney’s are feeling severe pain of the recession from the corporate clients. They are getting higher no. of individuals, but individuals accounts doesn’t get comparable money as what corporate accounts pays. This makes ezdia solution very attractive to the lawyers. If you are a lawyer willing to provide your online services you may like to check ezdia .

Uncategorized ezdia

You are an expert in your niche area. Just like Howard Johnson is an expert in Signal Integrity. Or, you are a social media expert like Giovanni Gallucci. You beat your classmates in discussions- innately. Your friends listen you when you lecture them about merits of organic foods. You listen to classical music in your free time.

You are probably an expert. And you can find place online that can help you turn your expertise into hard cash.

And by this hard cash, I do not mean get-rich-quick scheme. By hard cash I mean real money for which you have worked hard in past to gain expertise. You know your subject well and you are good at communicating.

The money you will earn will be based upon  user ratings and your areas of expertise. And dont get me wrong, many managers are are using the services of experts like you to get the job done until they can afford to add headcount.

Take a look at justAnswer.com. You have a problem? Just describe it, and indicate how much you’re willing to pay for an answer. One of the experts will get back to you fast.  Experts run the gamut from veterinarians and attorneys to mechanics and computer repair people.

Just take a quick glance of what people are looking for at justanswers.com.It turns out that many people are baffled by their electronic equipment,their computer hanging, their cars and their puppies ( looking for veterinary doctors). You will also find, many jobseekers looking for someone to polish their resume for a potential job. There are students want somebody to write their term papers for them.

And you wanted numbers in terms of money. Here is the excerpt from its website.

“Apply now to earn money for all of your answers that are accepted! Stage 1 (new) Experts earn 25% of what a customer is offering for an answer and Stage 4 Experts earn up to 50%. Once you have more than $20 in your account, just request payment and we’ll Pay Pal the money to you on the fourth business day of the month. ”

What does that mean ? Suppose you are a Stage 1 Expert. A customer pays $100 for an answer. Then $75 goes to justanswer and $25 goes to experts pocket. Unless off course, you are a Stage 4 expert, in which case you can earn 50 %.

If you think that 75% commission going to justanswer is too high there are alternatives.Take a look at liveperson.com. It connects people with an immediate need for information with experts who can supply that information. Liveperson is a one-on-one service, conducted over chat or via email.  LivePerson.com boasts 30,000 experts who are “ready to chat” on subjects from personal growth to small business solutions.

Some experts are lurking online, ready to jump in to answer your question, and others can be scheduled ahead for a one-on-one. The fee is set by the expert, anywhere from 50 cents to $5 per minute, about 45 percent of which goes to LivePerson.

Advice about “personal relationships”, “psychic”, is clearly a money-maker here, although you can find a Web designer, a homework coach or a cosmetologist when you want one.

The vetting process includes licenses for professions that require them, like doctors and lawyers. All experts’ resumes are available to prospective clients.

But once online, the experts live or die by client ratings which are, in the great tradition of the Internet, brutally honest. And in this world of pay-per-minute, the reviews cover typing speed as well as communication skills.

If the commissions from liveperson and just answers looks exorbitant to you, there is yet another alternative – ezdia.com. At the time of writing, experts earn 100% of the money they earn. If you are an expert at justanswers.com or liveperson.com you may like to join ezdia.com. You can reduce your rates, increase customer satisfaction. It will mean that you can increase the number of the persons looking for your services.

The scams and money making advertisements never die. There are some platforms that allow you to earn dollars for your expertise and for your advise. Share your expertise. Let your expertise help people and earn dollars for you.

online marketing ezdia

Experts Exchange is an online resource where people solve their technology problems by collaborating with IT professionals. Experts Exchange is an online IT resource that connects members to Experts around the world providing solutions to their technology issues. Experts Exchange currently has over 50,000 Experts assisting in these various Technology zones.

How Expert Exchange Works

Here is how a member, can find solution to your problem using Expert Exchange.

1. A member searches over 2.7 million solutions in Experts Exchange’s knowledgebase to answer their problem.
2. If their solution is not found, they ask a question about their IT problem.
3. The Expert Exchange community works to solve the problem.
4. The Asker accepts the solution and rewards points to the Expert that posted it.
5. The solution is stored in Experts Exchange’s knowledgebase.

So all this service is for free

Absolutely no. See the following table for the cost

Can you make money as Expert

So if people pay at Expert Exchange to get answers, can expert make money by providing answers ? A very good question. But sadly, the answer is NO. The money goes to expert-exchange. So, how does an expert benefit from it ? An expert benefit, by getting points for answering the questions. He can then use these points to use the expert-exchange system.

Can I get real time answer from expert using chat etc No. Expert exchange does not support real time chat from the experts. You can only ask questions and possibly post comments. There is no way you can contact the experts using the chat system.

Any Alternative ?

Yes. ezdia provides ability to get answers from the experts in real time using a chat system. You can search for an expert using ezdia search engine. If the expert is online you can start chatting with the expert. If the expert is not online you can send a message and get a appointment from him and chat with him a later time.

Benefit to Experts at eZdia

ezdia provides several benefit to the experts that are not available to the experts at experts-exchange. The experts at ezdia have a professional profile. This makes them available for being hired as a respected member in the area of their expertise. The experts at ezdia can secure freelancing work. eZdia makes the experts searcheable.

Next time you need an expert solution in real time, try ezdia .

Uncategorized ezdia

With today’s release, of ezdia achieved one great milestone – it now have a public profile for each member of ezdia. This makes eZdia in the same rank as LinkedIN – at least as far as making profiles and making network connection is concerned.

If you have a your public profile in  eZdia ,  you may like to use it in all communications and use it for your blogs. If you have noticed there is a “Share/Save” button on your eZdia public profile page. Use this button to submit your  profile page to social bookmarking site. Very soon -  if someone searches with your name it is possible that your eZdia profile page will be on 1st page of the google.

This will make you reachable. Your eZdia public profile also contains the important information about your capabilities and your areas of expertise. You should make sure that you keep it updated and include all the information about your expertise. People will then be able to take your help in the areas of your expertise.

And then this is just a start. With more offerings, eZdia is a strong platform with many more offerings to come. Most important of them is the project posting section which will allow experts to secure freelancing works. Does eZdia attempts to combine LinkedIn and elance ? The question is yes – but but with many more things – have you heard of Knowledge bucket ?

Reid Hoffman and Fabio Rosati – are you guys listening ?

Vikas Shukla is the lead architect of Hardware Design at BL Healthcare. He also provides consultancy for SEO and social media marketing.

freelancing ezdia, freelancing, linkedIn

Your networks has value. The more persons you have in you network, the more is the economic value. Each connection is important. The value of each connection can range from few dollars to few million dollars. The connection has to be right and the value lies in being utilized it at the right time.

I somehow came accross Tim Piazza, while reading his interesting blog . Tim is VP of Interactive Media at Keller Crescent and I came across his profile when reading about Giovanni Galluci. How I came to know about Giovanni is a different story. When I tried connecting to Tim Piazza at linkedIn, I got the following picture.

LinkedIn asked for money. How much ? Take a look at the following picture.

You need to pay $49.49 a month, just to be able to send a message. It does not even gaurantee that you will get connected to him successfully. So If I have one person in my contact it has some value. Give value to your connection. Respect your connection, reap it. Help your connection in whatever way you can.

eZdia is another professional networking tool. Unlike LinkedIn, it is free. You can make a connection to a person like Giovanni Gelucci at eZdia . Of course, it will depend upon the person, whether he accepts your connection or not. And if you want to increrase the chance, make your own profile impressive. Fill all of your details, include your photo. While this does not gaurantee that the person to whom you request for getting connected will accept your request, it will definitely increase the chance that he will look at your profile, and, with the right message may accept your connection.

It is often better to get introduced thrugh an existing connection. So invite some of your friends to join eZdia and ask them to add you in your connection.

Vikas Shukla is the lead architect of Hardware Design at BL Healthcare. He also provides consultancy for SEO and social media marketing.

Uncategorized ezdia, seo