WASHINGTON: One woman outsourced the breaking off of a relationship. A man sought bidders to clean his ears, and found someone highly qualified.

Both turned to a new breed of US companies that harness the Web to get someone else to take on the tedious or prosaic tasks in life.

"One woman called and had us break up with someone for her. We cancelled a date on her behalf and sent the guy her regards," said Mr Steve Ludmer of AskSunday.com, one of the new "life-facilitator" service companies.

AskSunday was founded a year ago by Mr Ludmer and a partner, both of whom were "time-starved professionals".

When you call an AskSunday number that appears to be in Washington, New York, London or Sydney, you get patched through to Hyderabad, India, where personal assistants are on hand day and night.

A competitor, called Get Friday, operates out of Bangalore, India. Another company, DoMy Stuff, operates differently: Users invite bids for an onerous or unpalatable task.

"Someone asked for someone to clean his ears. We thought it was a joke but we left it on there and he got some bids. The winning bid was from a doctor," Mr David Davin of Do My Stuff said.

Do My Stuff is free of charge and after one-and-a-half years of existence has 50,000 users. AskSunday would not say how many members it has or how many people work for it out of Hyderabad.

The service, which will turn one next month, charges an affordable US$19 (S$25.88) a month for 10 "requests".

Assignments include making an appointment with the doctor and generally can be accomplished in about 20 minutes, over the phone or by e-mail.

Mr Ludmer said it could branch out into other languages such as French by opening a call centre in French-speaking Africa. - AFP