After much delay we have added a popular feature that allows buyers to post projects and contests hidden from public view. For only $4 USD Confidential projects require users to login to view the title, description and other details. This means the projects will not be cached by Google or other search engines, nor our affiliates, aggregators and other third party sites. Casual passers-by will also be unable to view these projects without signing up first.

In addition, for extra privacy, once a Confidential project is closed it will become completely inaccessible to everyone except the buyer and their chosen freelancer.

This new project option will encourage more postings from buyers, who previously may have hesitated revealing their business idea and outsourcing activity on the Internet, and didn’t want to limit themselves to invite-only Private projects (which remain as a separate option).

Outsource your Confidential programming or design project today!

ScriptLance awards $100 every month to the user that makes the biggest contribution to contests by commenting and voting on other people’s entries. vinu91 has won this prize for the month of March. Congratulations!

We are happy to announce the launch of the ScriptLance web store at Payable.com. This sister site will allow freelancers to sell their products and services (software, templates, graphics, etc) directly to customers on ScriptLance, as well as involve the community in the production of new software. Payable is crowd funded. We take new software ideas and turn them into projects, get bids from freelancers to determine the cost of development, and then open those projects for funding from investors. Successfully funded projects are then sold on our store, with the software and profits being shared among the investors, developer and Payable.

The goal is to take ideas that are too expensive for any small business to get custom made on ScriptLance, and to instead share it with the community on Payable. In return, the burden of organizing, managing, developing, and most importantly, financing the project, is spread among the Payable crowd. It will now be possible to get professional $10,000 software created for as little as $500! The potential impact Payable will have on the number of new start-up web companies could be huge, as we will make it possible for more people to turn their innovations into creations.

ScriptLance users will be able to login to Payable using their existing username, as well as use their ScriptLance funds to pay for products or invest in projects on Payable. Potential investors will be able to find investment opportunities. And anyone can browse the collection of ideas, vote on ideas, discuess, or submit your own idea. Payable will award $50 to anyone who submits an idea that is successfully funded and produced.

Any seller who has not yet submitted their products or services to the store is invited to do so now. Buyers can browse the existing products and services.

ScriptLance awards $100 every month to the freelancer that makes the best contribution to contests. For February, the winner of this prize is Christopher Little (hephistocles) from Great Britain. He went above and beyond what was expected from a freelancer competing to win contest prizes; hephistocles provided feedback to other freelancers, not only by voting, but by posting constructive criticism. This is demonstrated best in this post of his. That is exactly what ScriptLance wants out of contributors, and that’s why he won.

Here are some of the other top contributors. First, some top commentors: thejoyofwriting, webinx, avijit2010, usamasarwar, logobank, europeanseo, dragonny, smile4u, akknair, vinu91

And some top voters: content24, webtanit, nick2009, ygd182, dragonny, victorzait, tcnseoservices, akknair, dsilvaanita, rlbaxter

Tips for winning the monthly top contributor prize:

We are not simply counting who voted the most, nor who posted the most replies. We are looking for users who did a lot of both. Not just in volume, but in quality, and across multiple contests. So if you want to be a top contrributor, start providing useful feedback to the buyers and to the other freelancers, not just by voting everything down or up, but by replying with your opinions.

Feedback is appreciated. Thank you.

ScriptLance has created a page on social photo sharing site Pinterest.

Since the site is a popular new way to share interesting images with other people, we thought it would be a great way to show off the designs submitted by our freelancers. It fits well with our new contest feature, which is off to a good start, offering people a quick and affordable way to gather creative ideas from our crowd of experts.

We plan to show off graphics created by ScriptLance users, including winning contest designs (which you can see here). Got any more ideas for things we can share on Pinterest? Tell us about it.

Also, we have added sharing buttons under all contest entries on ScriptLance, including for Pinterest, making it easy for you to share your contest designs, or others you find interesting.

Not on Pinterest? Post your ScriptLance username in a blog comment, to Twitter @scriptlance, or on our Facebook page, and we will be happy to send you an invite.

pinterest.com/scriptlance

Welcome the new ScriptLance mascot: a friendly little blue-haired hedgehog. He will soon appear in various forms to help give the service a personalized, yet professional, public face, that will distinguish ScriptLance from the competition.

The mascot was designed by our very own freelancer creativeservice as part of a mascot competition launched less than 3 weeks ago using our brand new contest crowdsourcing feature. That’s right. Although ScriptLance is primarily a service for outsourcing programming projects (and will remain that way), this shows that we have great designers too, among the many different expertise offered by our freelancers. Congratulations to creativeservice on winning the $500 USD prize!

There were many great submissions to the mascot contest, and I’d like to thank all who participated. But this hedgehog was clearly superior, as it fit our description perfectly, in art work as well as message. This mascot perfectly represents ScriptLance and its members: small, but resilient; efficient and affordable; friendly, yet still professional; fast and hard working; smart and innovative; confident and proud.

The next question may be: what should we call our new mascot? I don’t think it’s necessary to run another contest to find a name, since it seems like “Lance” should be an obvious choice for his name. Lance the Hedgehog. What do you think?

Feedback is welcome. Thank you.

We have a new flow chart diagram explaining ScriptLance’s project escrow feature (which allows buyers to set aside funds for contest and project winners). Another good and simple design by ScriptLance freelancer erithonia.

We have launched an ambitious new project type called ScriptLance contests, and posted several of our own contests for freelancers today.

This will allow buyers to run contests and select winners based on submitted results, especially for creative tasks. The unique aspect of ScriptLance contests is that they are not just for graphic design (like the other contest websites out there) such as logo creation, but can be used to get feedback on several tasks, including: finding a business name, slogan, ad text, doing research, as well as answering questions. The possibilities are limitless.

ScriptLance contests must be posted with Pre-Paid or Featured status. Prize money can also be set by moving funds into Project Escrow, another new feature that complements contests. This assures freelancers that the buyer has the money to pay the winners.

The other unique aspect of ScriptLance contests are that they allow, and encourage, freelancers to interact with the crowd: by replying to each other and voting on submissions. ScriptLance will track contributions made (and police abuses) and award $100 every month to the top contributors. This means that freelancers can earn extra money, without even submitting their own contest entries. And it means buyers get a brainstorming session with every contest they post. If contests are a success we hope to increase the monthly prizes.

All these features are laid out in a modern comment board that makes it easy to visualize and distinguish contest entries, replies and comments by the buyer.

You can see the new features by viewing and participating in one of the several contests ScriptLance has posted today:

• Contest: Suggest the best tooltip code for ScriptLance
• Contest: Think of a new slogan for ScriptLance
• Contest: E-Mail Newsletter design for ScriptLance
• Contest: Create a Mascot for ScriptLance

Tip: get notified of new projects and contests posted by ScriptLance by subscribing to our buyer RSS feed.

Feedback is welcome. Thank you.

-Rene Trescases

Owner, ScriptLance.com

I found the website Domai.nr, a great little tool to search for available domain names.

The cool thing is that it suggests domain hacks for the word you enter. Type “strangely” and it suggests strange.ly, str.an/gely, along with the usual strangely.com/net/org.

Check it out for domain name ideas.

http://domai.nr

Got any other similar tools to share? Leave a comment.

It’s now possible to view all dates/times on ScriptLance in your local time instead of the default Eastern Standard Time. The EST time is still available for your reference when you hover your mouse cursor over any local time. Set your time zone in your account settings to begin using this feature.

I’m happy to announce that this is the first feature implemented thanks to a popular idea on our new feedback site!

Subscribe to the ScriptLance Blog RSS and the Feedback RSS, if you haven’t already.

Feedback is welcome. Thank you.