International organization CrowdFlower, which utilizes crowdsourcing for more than seventy countries in order to promote a multi-lingual workforce, announced its move to acquire crowdsourced solutions provider TurkForce of Seattle. TurkForce allows businesses to effectively leverage Mechanical Turk advantages. Being the number one provider of businesses and enterprises crowdsource solutions, the company expands its services. The acquisition enhances the experience level of CrowdFlower in terms of crowdsourcing. It also broadens the company’s client base as well as adds an office in Seattle. Turkforce chief executive officer Isaac Nichols, a Mechanical Turk founding member, will be with CrowdFlower to help with strategic accounts and business development.

Odesk released a report today titled “SMB Trend Report” which states the strategy of small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to use virtual contract workers to promote growth. It is part of the report to determine the capability of SMBs to leverage themselves in today’s boundless economy to use a plentiful resource of benefits from a global contractor workforce. On top of this aim, the companies look forward to carry out strategic function and improve their business.

Freelancer.com today announced that it had acquired Freelancer.de, one of Germany's top freelancing marketplaces.

Today the world got smaller for freelancers, and the businesses that hire them.

Freelancer, the Sydney-based outsourcing service, announced a big jump in the size of its enormous global platform. It has added Sweden-based EUFreelance.com's user base to that of its own - the world's largest.

Following the unexpected announcement on 1st December that the freelance marketplace LimeExchange was due to close at the end of the year, Freelancer.com has announced its acquisition of the online marketplace. LimeExchange performed well in the most recent freelance market review, demonstrating strong growth. The acquisition by Freelancer will add 80,000 providers to Freelancers total, bringing it close to the 2m figure.

Freelancer.com today acquired LimeExchange.com, the online services run by Lime Labs LLC.

LimeExchange, the outsourcing marketplace launched by George Searle's Lime Labs Inc in February 2008 has announced it will cease trading at the end of 2010. The marketplace which was one of the star performers in the last quarter, increasing their billings from $0.45m per quarter to $0.7m per quarter, has struggled to compete with more established players in the market, despite its competitive 8% commission.

Freelancer.com today announced the acquisition of Freemarket.com and simultaneous launch of an online marketplace for buying and selling virtual goods. Stocked with content by Freelancer.com's rapidly growing userbase of over 1.7 million registered professionals, Freemarket.com aims to be the world's top marketplace for buying and selling digital content.