Evolution is the name of the new business social network designed by Russian startupers on the basis of blockchain technology and launched in the fall of 2017. Its main feature is every user is awarded an index representing the users’ business reputation, activities, skills and competences. Blockchain technology makes it impossible to amend or tamper with the data postfactum. Interestingly, Evolution in fact was developed on the basis of another project, Evodesk.
Evodesk is an advanced online planner for business activity systematization. As Vyacheslav Zolotukhin, an Evodesk and Evolution cofounder and blockchain ideologist, says:
“There are various planners for work systematization. Yet they all have had a fault in common, namely, a motivation to employ them only lasted for a few weeks. A user then becomes either bored or reluctant to keep using them”.
It was clear at some point that there was no task planner in the marker motivating users to permanently operate it. So it was decided to design one. And that is how Evodesk came to existence. The project’s other cofounder was Mikhain Kolmakov, a marketing and Internet traffic expert.
The first step was very simple: features of a popular Trello planner were replicated with an attractive gamification added. A user, if regularly employing the system, is awarded some points. The points could be spent to get discounts, bonuses or additional options. Evodesk’s first version was designed by just a single software specialist. At the moment there are ten software developers in the team. Besides, there are designers, copyrighters, SMM and PR specialists.
Audience for Evodesk was searched at various business forums and events. Entrepreneurs and similar groups constituted the core of the audience of the service. It was quite logical letting the audience ways to communicate within the system. So eventually the team of Evodesk added user search, profiles and messenger options. Thus Evodesk started becoming a professional social network where any users can tell about his or her competences, find an employee, an employer, a customer or a business partner. In September 2017 the launch of an Evodesk-based social network which was named Evolution, was announced. It was to the project’s advantage that its foreign competitor, Linkedin, was by then blocked in Russia. In fact, there are no more blockchain based professional social networks. That means, Evolution operates in a market which is just taking shape.
Nowadays, the platform users get all the options available in any other social network, and some additional services as well. Platform users have full access to Evodesk service. That means, users can set desks for planning business tasks and earn points for accomplishing them. Besides, there is a special shop where such points can be earned or spent. The points can also be purchased with a cryptocurrency. Evolution is not merely a social network. It has some DAO (decentralized autonomous organization) elements. Its every user is a full fledged partner who holds a share in Evolution and can vote on decisions to be made.
By Christina Firsova