| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | Aquarius membership: Any experience ? Is it useful ? Thread poster: Christophe Bartholomeus
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Gilda Manara 
Italy
Local time: 13:18
German to Italian
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| Aquarius membership | Dec 19, 2001 |
I am a paying member of Aquarius - I visited their site as non-paying until I say a job posting I was interested in bidding in, then I paid and made my bid, as well as some more. I got a couple of jobs from them, and have also been contacted privately by outsourcers who asked me if I would have done the job for a smaller fee than the minimum imposed by Aquarius (this proves that imposing a minimum fee is no solution to the falling rates for translators). When I joined, nearly one year ago, there... See more I am a paying member of Aquarius - I visited their site as non-paying until I say a job posting I was interested in bidding in, then I paid and made my bid, as well as some more. I got a couple of jobs from them, and have also been contacted privately by outsourcers who asked me if I would have done the job for a smaller fee than the minimum imposed by Aquarius (this proves that imposing a minimum fee is no solution to the falling rates for translators). When I joined, nearly one year ago, there seemed to be more activity; then for a long time there has been none at all, or just projects canceled by their customers after one has bid; now it seems to be starting again. I must say that their assistance to the members is more personal than in ProZ - they answer immediately all your letters, they keep you informed of the results of each bid, and while I understand that not being able to register due to technical difficulties (and the registration process is quite long) can be frustrating, but also ProZ has sometimes problems for logging in. Whether it is worth registering or not I could not say exactly. I think it is a matter of publicity - the more publicity you make to yourself, the more chances you have of exposing your profile to the attention of customers. It would be interesting, for this purpose, to know how many outsourcers visit sites such as ProZ, Aquarius or others, because we always read X has 20,000 translators, Y has 10,000 translators and so on, but we have no idea of how many potential customers use one or the other site!
Gilda ▲ Collapse
| | | | schwensen (X)
Local time: 13:18
Spanish to Danish
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| Another Aquarius member | Dec 19, 2001 |
I cannot tell anything new; I can only agree with the majority.
I\'m also a paying member of A., but I\'m not going to renew my membership next year. When I was a non-paying member it seemed to work, but soon after it turned out to be what another colleague called a \"complicated platform\".
I have received a couple of contacts through A., but that\'s all.
Best,
Anna
[addsig]
| | | | Alex Eames
Local time: 12:18
English to Polish
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| But they've got 8 full-time staff | Dec 19, 2001 |
Quote:
On 2001-12-19 06:21, reymarktco wrote:
I must say that their assistance to the members is more personal than in ProZ - they answer immediately all your letters, they keep you informed of the results of each bid...
Gilda
They have got 8 full-time staff at aquarius. Proz is a 2-man band. You should think of Aquarius as a translation agency which charges the translators to regist... See more Quote:
On 2001-12-19 06:21, reymarktco wrote:
I must say that their assistance to the members is more personal than in ProZ - they answer immediately all your letters, they keep you informed of the results of each bid...
Gilda
They have got 8 full-time staff at aquarius. Proz is a 2-man band. You should think of Aquarius as a translation agency which charges the translators to register to work for them. 
Alex Eames
http://www.translatortips.com
helping translators do better business
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You may have heard enough by now to make up your mind, but here is my two bits worth: there appear to be more technical problems with the aquarius site and there are far fewer postings than with proz. I have a silver membership and indeed it is a bit galling then also to have to pay a fee for a contract, particularly as in one case I paid this fee many months before the contractor paid me (he was waiting for a more favorable exchange rate!). Mind you, for problems their staff seem quite responsi... See more You may have heard enough by now to make up your mind, but here is my two bits worth: there appear to be more technical problems with the aquarius site and there are far fewer postings than with proz. I have a silver membership and indeed it is a bit galling then also to have to pay a fee for a contract, particularly as in one case I paid this fee many months before the contractor paid me (he was waiting for a more favorable exchange rate!). Mind you, for problems their staff seem quite responsive and helpful.
One of the problems with the site is that you are very limited as to number of fields of expertise you can state with most of the membership types. This means that you do not get alerted with respect to translations that may be in secondary fields. If I were running Aquarius, I would revamp the policies and operation, since Proz is proving far more valuable in the long run.
I believe I\'ve had about three projects from Aquarius, all rather small.
Hope this helps.
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| Some calculations... | Dec 23, 2001 |
I recently tried to register with Aquarius but I didn\'t succeed because of the tecnical error mentioned above.
I never had the intention to become a paid member, I just want to expose my services on the internet. I don\'t think paid membership would pay of. Here\'s why:
Aquarius says it has more than 20.000 members. It also says it helped to get custumers close to 4.000.000 words translated in the month of November. Sounds great, ey? - Not to me, though!
... See more I recently tried to register with Aquarius but I didn\'t succeed because of the tecnical error mentioned above.
I never had the intention to become a paid member, I just want to expose my services on the internet. I don\'t think paid membership would pay of. Here\'s why:
Aquarius says it has more than 20.000 members. It also says it helped to get custumers close to 4.000.000 words translated in the month of November. Sounds great, ey? - Not to me, though!
This would make an average of 4.000.000/20.000 = 200 translated words per member per month, or 20Euro at a rate of optimistic 0,10Euro per word.
A gold member pays 150Euro per year, which is 12Euro50 per month...
The numbers speak for themselves, and sure, don\'t forget these are average figures, so you can always hope to be far above average (which on the other hand means there must be quiet a few pretty below average!)
Are there some figures about ProZ available?
Merry Christmas to all ProZ Members!
Stephan
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| | | | Zareah (X)
United States
English to German
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| Ok, what about Elance? | Dec 28, 2001 |
Hello everybody,
since you\'re talking about Aquarius, I\'d like to ask you what you think about Elance. Elance doesn\'t give non-paying members the opportunity to bid either. And their fees are also pretty high ($25/month for basic members and between $40-150/month for \"gold\" members!).
Is it really worth the money?
| | | | Rick Henry
United States
Local time: 06:18
Italian to English
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I tried elance for a month. I wasn\'t all that impressed. I got a couple of bids, only to be told later on that 1) the money had \"dried up\" for the project, or 2) they found someone outside of elance after all (after choosing me). Something else I\'ve noticed about elance - and maybe this happens often on other sites as well - jobs are almost never properly closed, so you really don\'t know if the job was actually awarded to someone, or what happened. At a cost of 25 bucks a month (basic),... See more I tried elance for a month. I wasn\'t all that impressed. I got a couple of bids, only to be told later on that 1) the money had \"dried up\" for the project, or 2) they found someone outside of elance after all (after choosing me). Something else I\'ve noticed about elance - and maybe this happens often on other sites as well - jobs are almost never properly closed, so you really don\'t know if the job was actually awarded to someone, or what happened. At a cost of 25 bucks a month (basic), I don\'t really think it\'s worth it.
I\'ve found good old fashioned foot work - looking for agencies yourself - seems to work best.
R.
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Quote:
On 2001-12-28 04:57, Zareah wrote:
Hello everybody,
since you\'re talking about Aquarius, I\'d like to ask you what you think about Elance. Elance doesn\'t give non-paying members the opportunity to bid either. And their fees are also pretty high ($25/month for basic members and between $40-150/month for \"gold\" members!).
Is it really worth the money?
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| | | | Lydia Molea
Germany
Local time: 13:18
English to German
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| another aquarius member | Feb 25, 2002 |
I\'ve been a member of aquarius for a few months now, and so far I\'ve only received one job, which covered the membership fee, and that\'s about it. That one job was via Rapid Response, not an actual posting. If this does not improve by the time my membership expires, I will not renew it. ProZ is definitely better!
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Erika Pavelka (X)
Local time: 07:18
French to English
| My experience | Feb 26, 2002 |
I\'ve been a member of Aquarius for a few years. I tried the paid membership for one year (Silver), and I have never received a job, either when I was paying or non-paying member.
I found it a good resource in the beginning, but then they became more geared toward agencies.
As others have mentioned, they send out job notices, but you have to be a paying member to be able to see and bid on these jobs. I find it a bit insulting to keep receiving these mess... See more I\'ve been a member of Aquarius for a few years. I tried the paid membership for one year (Silver), and I have never received a job, either when I was paying or non-paying member.
I found it a good resource in the beginning, but then they became more geared toward agencies.
As others have mentioned, they send out job notices, but you have to be a paying member to be able to see and bid on these jobs. I find it a bit insulting to keep receiving these messages yet not be able to even see it. I now filter those messages into my trash bin.
HTH,
Erika
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| | | | Werner George Patels, M.A., C.Tran.(ATIO) (X)
Local time: 07:18
German to English
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| Spring is in the air ... | Mar 20, 2002 |
... and it\'s time for change.
Aquarius will launch its new website later this month - with more features, faster servers, ...
_______________________________
Werner George Patels
Aquarius Moderator - \"Finance\"
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