Patent ID: 8170897

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing an electronic marketplace that acts as an intermediary to facilitate performance by task performer users of tasks supplied by task requesters, the method comprising: for each of multiple tasks, receiving information about the task from a task requester user who is submitting the task as being available for performance by one or more task performer users, at least some of the multiple tasks each having one or more associated validation tests that are specified by the task requester user who submitted the task, the one or more associated validation tests for one of the at least some tasks including obtaining initial results from one or more initial task performer users and receiving an evaluation of the initial results from one or more other task performer users that are more highly qualified than the initial task performer users, such that success of those one or more associated validation tests includes that the evaluation is positive; automatically facilitating performance of at least some of the multiple submitted tasks by providing information about tasks to task performer users and receiving results of performance of tasks by task performer users, the received results including results for one or more of the at least some tasks, the automatic facilitating being performed by one or more configured computing systems that are part of the electronic marketplace; and for each of the one or more of the at least some tasks, after the receiving of the results of performance of the task by one or more task performer users, automatically performing the one or more associated validation tests on the results for the task and determining that the results are acceptable based at least in part on the performed validation tests succeeding, the automatic performing of the one or more associated validation tests being performed by the one or more configured computing systems; and in response to determining that the results are acceptable, providing the results to the task requester user who submitted the task.