Elance-oDesk Merger Begets Upwork

Rebranding is a tricky business, especially if your company has a lot of competition. Usually, rebranding includes creating a new marketing strategy with a new name, logo, or style to refresh the brand and attract new consumers or investors. Recently, Elance-oDesk went through a rebranding and gave birth to Upwork.

When Elance and oDesk merged a little more than a year ago, users were skeptical. Elance’s reputation was that it had higher quality job listings and more professional talent. O-Desk was considered the place for smaller, lower budget jobs that might not attract premium providers. After the merger, which came as a complete surprise to freelancers, things really started to change.

If you don’t know how a freelance marketplace works, Clients list jobs for free and Providers pay to bid and send proposals to the Clients. After the work is complete, Clients can leave feedback for the Providers. Elance profits from the Providers’ initial purchase of “connects” to bid on jobs and on the back end for about a 9% portion of the Providers’ payments. Given that all of the revenue is generated by providers, one would think they would be treated better.

The Elance shake-up led to censorship on LinkedIn and on their own forum. It also involved deleting user accounts for no apparent reason, with no explanations. Providers simply found out by not being able to log into their accounts. Many had ongoing jobs and couldn’t contact Clients. There were several issues that were not addressed by the administration and the communications that were posted were in the forum rather than a newsletter or professional page.

Now that Elance has “cleaned house” they are moving onto their Stage 2 plan, Upwork. oDesk was certainly in need of rebranding. Apparently the rebranding comes with a higher price tag: a 10% cut of Providers’ pay for each job.

Upwork’s new distinguishing feature is that the gap between listing a job and hiring someone is much shorter. They have provided a chat platform for collaboration, which is interesting. Elance once had an option to chat and ask questions to a job poster before bidding, but it was removed. On Upwork, there is a chat platform that is free for anyone to use, whether using Upwork or not.

The question that first comes to mind is whether Upwork will attract viable jobs. One of the main frustrations for freelancers is that they join marketplaces, pay to bid, and jobs are not awarded and the bid money is not refunded. Will Upwork change that model? How will freelancers feel about the 10% cut that Upwork is taking at end of a job? Will the jobs be screened – for example, many oDesk jobs sought 500 word articles for $1 or less.

I signed into Upwork and was dragged through a signup process before I could even view information about freelancing for the site. Many details had to be completed immediately and couldn’t be left until later. The profile, once at least the skeleton was provided, has to be approved before being posted. I was unable to even view available jobs until I am approved. Finally, the rates are provided. There is a free plan and a $10 plan, similar to Elance. The paid plan offers more options and perks.

At a glance, Upwork looks like oDesk with a facelift. Just having to complete the profile without being able to view some of the jobs to see if it was worth joining is difficult. And once finished, still not being able to view jobs until “approved” is not too motivating to get in there and spend time creating a great profile. I was able to see some of the community comments, though, and it looks like the freelancers currently  using Upwork are, on the whole, not impressed. Time will tell.

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