Just want to take a moment to give a shout out to one of my all-time favorite blogs, FreelanceSwitch.com. This week, Collis and the Envato crew released a redesigned and enhanced version 3 of the site for freelance professionals. Not surprisingly, it looks fantastic and the new features rock!
the new FreelanceSwitch.com
First, a quick run-down of the new features:
- Freelancers directory
- Freelancers profile pages, complete with portfolio showcases, testimonials, and social media links. View mine here.
- Enhanced forum, job board, membership area
- I’m sure there’s more stuff I haven’t clicked around to yet…
But really what I want to say is…
Thank you to FreelanceSwitch.com for everything they have done for my freelance career. I can truly say that this website is the exact starting point for my venture into the freelancing.
Cut to two years ago…
I’m sitting at my full-time day-job as a front-end developer, hacking away at another monotonous maintenance task on a large client site for the company, when I started thinking about my career goals. Where am I headed here? Where do I want to go? With so many projects, ideas, and interests floating around, I wasn’t quite sure exactly where I wanted to end up. But I knew one thing for certain.
I needed to diversify my goals and find the freedom to pursue a variety of different projects. It wasn’t long before the word “freelancing” popped into my head. Minutes later, I entered that word in google, and found my way to FreelanceSwitch.com.
Rejuvenated passion for the web
Maybe it was the fun and polished design of the site, or the interesting articles from different freelance web professionals, but I immediately found a renewed interest in the web. I found myself clicking through every article in the archives, visiting the portfolios of other web workers, and tuning into the FreelanceSwitch podcast (which is awesome by the way).
It wasn’t too long after that I became obsessed with every site offering from Envato (the company behind FreelanceSwitch). What immediately struck me about each of their sites is the unique and approachable design, which frames a wealth of interesting and useful content.
As of two years ago, I had never been exposed to these types of sites. Having been working on national brand websites for a couple years, I wasn’t in touch with the freelance scene, the small businesses, the creatives who are really stirring things up on the web. The Envato network of sites was (and still is) my gateway to that world.
A few favorites
Every site in the Envato network is well-worth your attention, but beyond FreelanceSwitch.com, a few have become my personal favorites:
- NETTUTS – excellent tutorials on web development. Always a first stop when I’m learning something new.
- AUDIOTUTS – tutorials for musicians, producers, and audio engineers. Although I’m not as involved in this as I used to be, it’s an excellent resource and a well designed blog- Something you don’t see very often in the web music scene.
- AudioJungle – Marketplace for audio tracks. I’ve made a bit of cash through this site : )
- Creattica – Excellent design inspiration site, searchable by category and user rating.
- AppStorm – Reviews of every Mac application imaginable. An apple fan’s dream.
And my current personal favorite:
The Netsetter – Now, this isn’t officially part of the Envato network, but it’s a blog authored by Collis Ta’eed, founder of Envato. The Netsetter is a blog about web business and entrepreneurship, something I’m currently very passionate about (obsessed with). I just wish Collis would post here more often!