ThemBid is an auction service that allows consumers to post jobs and gives job seekers the opportunity to bid on the price they would need in order to complete the task.

Programming houses like GetAFreelancer use a similar model to connect coders and consumers, but the big difference is that instead of focusing on technology, ThemBid is also targets more mundane tasks like House Keeping and Painting services.

Today, ThemBid is releasing a white label of their product that will allow publishers to post ThemBid classifieds and take a cut of any transactions that result.

ThemBid

Pro forma disclosure: I know Elmer, the CEO of ThemBid.

Think of ThemBid as Web 2.0’s Craigslist. Actually, don’t, it’s much better than that description would make you believe. The application focuses on connecting local service providers with consumers. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, the listings are simple and to the point and the overall design structure seems to put utility over flash.

Saying that, I think that for a service that relies on local targeting there should be a more intuitive way to sort by location. The “search” functionality consists of a directory tree, which works but makes very specific queries frustrating. An example, I dug through three levels of the directory tree to find classifieds for Orlando, Florida only to find out that there were none.

With the white label, any web publisher can have his own job board. Obviously, this kind of widget works best for publishers that drive a large volume of traffic but what’s exciting about this as compared to other products like it is that the much larger number of job categories means that almost any publisher (not just those in tech) can potentially benefit.

There is no charge for posting jobs or bidding on jobs using ThemBid. Instead, the company seeks to earn a revenue by offering premium profiles with upgraded e-commerce services.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Overall, ThemBid provides a great additional point of contact whether you are a job seeker looking for exposure or a business looking for help. There aren’t as many listings as services like Craigslist, but the listings that are there are of pretty high quality.

As for the white label, this is a great (and possibly first) opportunity for non-tech publishers to be able to host their own job board. If you have the kind of traffic to support it, it is certainly worth trying out.

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