Evolution – The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy
Elance was first launched in 1999, its name inspired by a 1998 Harvard Business Review article titled “The Dawn of the E-Lance Economy”. It was initially developed as a technology for supporting virtual work. Two years later Elance introduced a vendor management system (VMS) for contractors and third-party services used by large enterprises. In 2006 Elance sold its enterprise software division and developed instead its current web-based platform for online, contingent work. As of February 2013, Elance is used by approximately 500,000 businesses and 2 million registered freelance professionals, who have collectively earned nearly $850 million to date.
It has been life changer
DANIEL B.- Video/Animator “I work with really talented clients from around the world.”
LAURA P. – Writer “I put my best skills to work, finding jobs that are a great fit.”
DENNIS H.- WEB Designer/Developer “The Internet is our most powerful tool for communication.”
ESTEBAN T. – User Interface Designer “I love knowing my expertise helps my clients succeed.”
REMINGTON M – Student/Graphic Designer “I truly love the work I get to do on a daily basis.”
Early 2015 another major player Odesk purchased Elance, making a biggest freelancing community together. This already set waves for debates in the industry as community has been divided between the two leaders. And waves has been followed by tremor following another announcement from merged entity Upwork.
The Fall of elance ecomnomy
Earlier this week i received a email from the Stephane Kasriel CEO, Upwork stating a shocking disclosure that Elance platform – the leading freelancing community that has been responsible for changing the life of lot people throughout the globe will be winding itself. Lot of countries became the leading outsourcing player which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Romania & Indonesia. Certain other countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel benefited from the globalization. Lot of services became accessibile to small business which where costly in their own country.
We had been working on elance since its inception, we got lot of new clients, projects from elance. It feels really bad that such vibrant community will see winding up its operation. Upwork has already started transferring the community to upwork.com even we plan to move with it. We wish entire community best of luck with upwork. We hope upwork will as productive as elance was.
Source of inspiration for this article has been entire community, wikipedia , elance.com & upwork.com