Elance, Inc.

Upwork Global Inc.

Ved Ranjan Sinha

Ayyappan Arasu

Yuet Ping Poon

Anthony M Hahn

Fabio Rosati

Rajasekhar L Kovuru

Maurizio A Gianola

Sunny SunMin Song

Harish Bal Kotbagi

Yuet Ping Pong

In a services exchange medium, buyers are able to search and hire service providers to get projects done quickly and cost effectively. A buyer-provider matching algorithm uses two scores to calculate a 'Provider Search' score for each service provider: a 'Reputation' score and a &#x201c;Provider Match&#x201d; score. In some embodiments, the &#x201c;Reputation&#x201d; score is a quantitative metric score of a service provider's overall reputation within the services exchange medium. In other embodiments, the &#x201c;Reputation&#x201d; score is configured to enhance the &#x201c;Provider Match&#x201d; score. Since reputation is an important attribute when searching for a qualified service provider, the &#x201c;Provider Search&#x201d; score takes into consideration the &#x201c;Reputation&#x201d; score. A provider results list generated from a provider search is sorted by the &#x201c;Provider Search&#x201d; score. As such, the provider results list is sorted in a significant manner useful to the buyer searching for the qualified service provider.

Buyer-provider matching algorithm

An online professional badge allows viewers to view real-time information about the service provider. Typically, the real-time information includes a subset of information provided in a profile belonging to the service provider within a services exchange medium. The online professional badge resides anywhere on the Internet outside the services exchange medium. The online professional badge allows the service provider to actively market the service provider as a professional in, but not limited to, dating and social networks, blogs, web pages, email messages, chat messages, and/or banner advertisements. As such, viewers are able to learn about the service provider and/or initiate a hiring process without accessing other sites.

Online professional badge

A workroom is automatically established for each job created and is associated with a unique email address. The workroom allows members to hold live meetings, communicate in real-time, including via email, upload/manage/share files, and automatically provide transcripts of communication. The workroom also allows team members to launch work trackers directly from the workroom. A work tracker collects work information and directly generates one or more status reports based on the work information collected. A status report includes a back-end version viewable and modifiable by a service provider and a front-end version viewable by a buyer. The status report directly generates an invoice based on the information from the status report. The invoice is submitted to the buyer and allows the buyer to directly pay the service provider.

System for status reporting and invoicing of work tracked from a work tracker

Authenticated session work tracking and job status reporting apparatus

Digital workroom

Growing community of inventors

Menlo Park, CA, United States of America

Ved Ranjan Sinha