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A Virtual Assistant is a person (sometimes office staff) who is willing to provide services that can be rendered electronically. As real office staff, s/he can be an Engineer, Secretary, Typist, Computer Programmer, etc.. They are also referred as "Virtual Service Providers" if they have been organized as a group and in an independent office. "Virtual Staff", "Cyber Assistants", "Cyber Consultants" are another names for Virtual Assistants.

A Virtual Assistant may be a part-time or full-time worker in his/her "Virtual Business" which is also called as "e-buiness" or "e-job". S/he can also be a home office or a small business owner.

Specialist VA is the same as above except that s/he can offer more sophisticated services in the area of his/her speciality. This also means that s/he can offer lower prices with higher efficiency and quality.

Task is simply the work to be completed for a certain fee. Tasks can vary from very specific Engineering design to collecting information or a document in a foreign country. The only limitation is that the nature of the task should allow it to be completed without requiring physical contact of VE and SVA.

Some other words to refer to the "task" in cyber world are "e-work" and "e-business".

A Virtual Employer is an individual or a company who needs certain tasks to be completed by the help of SVAs. Most of the time, a VE undertakes a project as a whole and subcontracts portions of it as tasks to third parties. In some cases, VEs look for an SVA for their personal needs such as resume writing, advice, preparation of drawings for a new house, etc.

The Virtual Employer may be a small entrepreneur, home based entrepreneur, home office or small business owner as well as a large corporation. Sometimes a person in e-business acts as both "Virtual Employer" and "Virtual Assistant" especially in case of large tasks requiring services under more than a single category or a subcategory.

This is simply helping to get SVAs and VEs together by having correct and sufficient information on both parties along with the description of the virtual task.