What happens when you combine a job search board like GetAFreelancer and eLance with a popular social networking platform? The answer that Boca Raton based Social networking site VOIS hopes to find is that you create a brand new way of looking at the outsourcing model.

Social Sourcing

VOIS is one of my favorite social networks, if only because they are such a huge departure from the standard model. For one, instead of targeting the Super-Poke set that sites like Facebook and MySpace covet, VOIS bills itself as a social network for the 35 and over crowd. VOIS is also the only social network that I am aware of that is publicly traded (VOIS).

Beginning today, they have taken this positioning a step further and have decided to step away from the advertising-based revenue model the stymies so many other networks and instead are moving to tap into the multi-billion dollar outsourcing industry.

“We feel that the launch of social sourcing could prove to be the most significant of any new P2P (Peer-to-Peer) online platforms since eBay,” stated Gary Schultheis, Vois.com President. “VOIS will be ‘fundamentally different’ from other social networking websites including MySpace or Facebook, in that VOIS will not rely primarily on advertising revenue. Instead VOIS will derive revenue from its multiple transaction-based streams such as success fees, voluntary membership upgrades, subscription fees and revenue sharing. The basic product offering will be free so that anyone can join, build social networks, and list or purchase commercial transactions, including IT and professional services and on-demand manufacturing.”

After talking to Craig Agranoff, a press contact for Vois, my impression is that they are trying to plug some of the holes that have traditionally plagued outsourcing platforms. The most important one being trust. While sites like eLance allow you to look at past transaction and even see eBay-style ratings of the companies that are bidding for services, this only gives you a limited vantage point on which to make a buying decision.

By creating a “social marketplace,” the idea is that you will be able to see who your friends have hired, get endorsements from people you already trust, look at sample work, and generally do all the background research that normal freelance marketplaces shortcut.

This is a big idea and one that VOIS seems poised to build upon. The question that is still up in the air is whether they will be able to differentiate themselves enough from other Freelance marketplaces. If they can manage to turn what amounts to simple transactions into a functioning marketplace they have a chance of carving out a place in the growing outsourcing industry.

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