Project outsourcing is nothing new in the web nor is it new in the Asia region, especially in India and China where people are hired by people abroad to get their projects off the ground quickly and on the cheap. Project852 has taken the idea to the developers and businesses in Hong Kong.

Now that you’ve had a look, you are probably asking yourself, this site has little or no web 2.0 elements and all the other good stuff. It’s true, but it’s a step in the right direction and with a bit of constructive criticism from the community, maybe they’ll be on their way. For example, some simple yet useful improvements could be adding RSS feeds for job categories and search results, simpler interface and other features you’d find on eLance and others. Why not clone it? I used to think cloning is just not the right way to go, but sometimes, it’s what you have to do or very least take cues from those sites. But again, this is Hong Kong where the web is still very underdeveloped.

They should also find a way to make sure there won’t be any cases where buyers and providers get ripped off. I’ve seen/heard/experienced cases where providers take the cash and run or companies collecting their deliverables and not paying the dues.

Nevertheless, this is good initiative and despite what many say, including myself, that there is no market demand in Hong Kong. But ignoring this won’t solve the problem here, and I’m starting to believe building anything for the local market is definitely a good thing. Whether there is demand or not, we won’t know until there are services out for the market.