I hope it's obvious that such tactics are not ok here.
1. https://theworkmob.com/demo/#/projects/hackernews-stability
Respectfully - Travis
How could it not mislead? With a obviously fake quote from PG?
That should obviously have been made clear; a large oversight.
In this rare instance I think I'll try speaking for Patrick McKenzie, a fellow consultant, along with myself: we think the answer is the latter.
If you're aiming for the most lucrative work, the conversation you want to be having with prospective clients has very little to do with anything you'd put on a developer portfolio, and a lot more to do with (a) being able to speak the language of business (ie: making a credible benefits-focused pitch and understanding how "customer service" principles apply to our kind of work) and (b) being able to tailor a case study or two to a client.
The latter might sound like something you could profitably host on a freelancer site, but the kind of case study I'm talking about works more like a resume cover letter than the resume itself.
Edit to expand:
So some of the features of WorkMob were easy for you to write, but are not in the best interests of many people who could potentially work for you. If your design showcases to clients that "Number of OSS projects" or "Number of Github followers" are how you rate developers, your clients might actually develop the impression that those two numbers a) matter and b) matter quite a lot.
Instead of being inspired by freelance portfolios, which devote 95% of the emphasis to What and 5% of the emphasis to Why, maybe you should look at case studies by consulting firms who are good at what they do.
One I wrote which drove substantial additional business for me: http://blog.fogcreek.com/our-marketing-is-up-fog-creek-and-w...
One which I was not involved with, but which I routinely recommend for people when they ask "How do I write a case study?": http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/seomoz-case-study/
You'll note that neither of these is particularly intensive from a features-required-to-support-the-case-study perspective. All you need is a blogging engine that lets you add images. For bonus points, email capture.
I see your point. We're finding that we want to focus in on real validated feedback from past clients and simple case studies of the work.
We're still thinking through the actual metrics that make sense to profile, and I can definitely see that Github scores might not be very important.
I'd love to go deeper in how we can create a framework for case studies if you're free to connect offline. matt@theworkmob.com
We've taken the position of freelancer discovery over matchmaking. Our goal is to give freelancers a great way to be discovered by filtered clients, based on specific skills and experience qualifications.
We want make it possible for freelancers and clients to find each other more efficiently, and we're not going to be involved with the actual project or contract.
For your example, we might serve as the place where the client found the 3 consultants that were invited to pitch with a cover letter, resume, and case studies.
I hear you on the "commoditization" of freelance software work, and we're actually trying to fight that. We're trying to build the freelancer site that actually built for the freelancer, and gives them a way to be found by the types of clients they're looking for. VS. what exists today where freelancers bid against each other, have to deal with shitty job descriptions, and less than awesome clients.
Would love to talk more offline if you're open to it. matt@theworkmob.com
Also, knowing how a developer works best would be useful. For example, does the developer like to check in regularly or does he/she prefer a hands off experience.
It would be great to have a portfolio that could showcase a variety of different information (dynamically) catered to the person looking at that that profile.
I hate hiring devs on oDesk / Elance / etc - alternatives would be marvellous.
What I like:
* You have a website
* Design is very easy and clean
* You show your references
* There's an e-mail address
What could be better:
* Your picture. If you don't want to show your face just leave it out. Otherwise take a nice picture and put it up without any effects / filters
* I don't know what you did on each of your projects. Normally, I assume that you either did the whole site or a minimal part.
Stuff that depends (if you mainly sell to technical or non-technical people):
* Your services part doesn't really describe technologies / frameworks. However, if I look for a freelancer I look for somebody knowing Django, Magento or whatever.
* Same goes for the projects
There are a handful of similar services out there, and to be honest, I wish all of them well. This approach has worked for design-freelancing sites, and properly adapted and adjusted, it could work well for development projects. In the long run, the big win here will be in recommendations and semi-automation of matching portfolio signal with job characteristics. They're also doing interesting work on making the job posting, scoping, and selection process easier for nontechnical to mildly technical hirers.