Online Employment Report reveals PHP & WordPress skills in top demand

Elance, one of the web’s leading freelance job auctioning services, has released its quarterly Online Employment Report. The report uses data from the service to find trends in the web work sphere.

In the last three months of 2010, Elance users brought in a total of over $27 million, a significant chunk of the $351 million in earnings the site has facilitated over its lifetime. Between Q4 2009 and Q4 2010, the number of job postings grew a whopping 37.7%. The report backs other sources showing that companies are spending more of their labor budgets on freelancers over employees every year.

Most interesting to designers and developers are Elance’s statistics on top overall skills, sorted by demand. Developers working with PHP and WordPress top the list at #1 and #2 respectively, with article writing, HTML and graphic design in the top five. Despite the proliferation of newer frameworks such as Ruby on Rails, it appears that PHP and open source PHP projects like WordPress, the world’s most widely-used blogging platform, are here to stay.

Top Overall Skills in Demand

1.	PHP
2.	WordPress
3.	Article Writing
4.	HTML
5.	Graphic Design
6.	MySQL
7.	Content Writing
8.	CSS
9.	Photoshop
10.	Web Content
11.	Data Entry
12.	English Translation
13.	JavaScript
14.	iPhone
15.	Illustrator
16.	Copywriting
17.	Logo Design
18.	Blogs
19.	Research
20.	Admin Assistant
21.	Joomla!
22.	SEO
23.	AJAX
24.	Creative Writing
25.	Internet Marketing

26.	Social Media Marketing
27.	.NET
28.	Web Design
29.	Flash
30.	Microsoft Excel
31.	Lead Generation
32.	General Computer Skills
33.	Animation
34.	Business Writing
35.	jQuery
36.	Facebook
37.	iPad
38.	Android
39.	Editing
40.	Sales
41.	XHTML
42.	Advertising
43.	Ecommerce
44.	Ghostwriting
45.	3d
46.	Email Marketing
47.	ASP.NET
48.	Java
49.	Marketing Strategy
50.	Sales Writing

51.	Custom Illustration
52.	HTML5
53.	Online Writing
54.	eBooks
55.	Market Research
56.	Drupal
57.	Technical Writing
58.	Direct Marketing
59.	Cartoon
60.	SEM
61.	InDesign
62.	Magento
63.	Google AdWords
64.	Proofreading
65.	Telemarketing
66.	C#
67.	Database
68.	Email Handling
69.	Branding
70.	Objective-C
71.	General Office Skills
72.	Transcription
73.	Customer Service
74.	Video Editing
75.	Video Production

76.	XML
77.	SQL
78.	iOS
79.	ActionScript
80.	Content Management System
81.	Web Services
82.	Office Administration
83.	Email Handling
84.	C++
85.	PayPal
86.	Google Website Optimizer
87.	Social Networking
88.	Cover Design
89.	Non-Fiction Writing
90.	Telephone Etiquette
91.	Creative Suite
92.	SQL Server
93.	After Effects
94.	Ruby on Rails
95.	Art Direction
96.	ASP
97.	Linux
98.	BlackBerry
99.	Word Processing
100.	Amazon Web Services

source --(http://www.elance.com/p/online-employment-report.html)

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Bing up, Google down in latest search rankings

Though Google is still king of the search engine arena, Bing is creeping up, according to a report released yesterday by market researcher Experian Hitwise.

Looking at the global search engine market in January, Google took home almost 68 percent of all searches. But that marked a 2 percentage point dip from December. The number of searches run at Bing.com and Bing-powered sites collectively rose by 6 points, giving Microsoft's search engine a 27.4 percent cut of the market.

(Credit: Experian Hitwise)

Breaking down the Bing results, Bing.com by itself accounted for 12.8 percent of all searches, a 21 percentage point jump from December. Searches conducted at Yahoo sites powered by Bing slid 4 points, giving those 14.6 percent of the market, said Experian Hitwise.

Further, Bing and Yahoo combined outscored Google in January's success rate, which indicates the number of search results that actually triggered a visit to a Web site. This rate is considered key as it measures not the quantity of searches but rather the accuracy and relevancy of the results returned. For the month, Bing/Yahoo scored an 81 percent success rate, according to the data, surpassing the 65 percent rate achieved by Google and virtually the same as the rates in December.

(Credit: Experian Hitwise)

Google and Bing were both on the warpath recently after Google accused its rival of stealing its search results following a surprise sting operation. Reps from both companies found themselves in a heated exchange at a conference last week debating the accuracy and validity of Google's findings.

Launching such a sting operation could be a sign that Google is growing more concerned about Microsoft's rising chunk of the search engine market. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently told reporters that he sees Microsoft and not Facebook as a major competitor, calling it the company with "more cash, more engineers, more global reach."

( SOURCE ->CNET.COM )