Even though social media nowadays comes in a variety of shapes and forms it still has much potential out there. Newcomers to this already Well-established market might find a space in it based on product specialization and differentiation. Surely, existing platforms do not satisfy all the needs and do not serve all the purposes.
Gadogi, a new platform for social collaboration has made a case in point having launched its service at the Innovation in Mind conference a few weeks ago. We got a chance to meet the two inspirational people behind Gadogi, Torkel Stålhand and Thomas Hallin, who told us more about their new project and how it is different from other platforms.
Could you tell us about Gadogi and what it actually means?
Gadogi is a place to share your genius. The word itself is derived from Cherokee word ”Gadugi” which means everybody paddles. In essense it communicates ancient tradition of working together in a community and that’s what we are going for. Gadogi’s mission is to create fun but effective way to share ideas, innovate and co-create. It is a new collaboration tool for building the world we want to live in.
With Gadogi you can share your ideas, get advice and find necessary resources for your projects. We also want to empower individuals because through them we could strengthen the networks and the causes people are working on.
How did you come up with this idea?
I do a lot of mediation and coaching and these things are about visualisation. So at some point I just saw how everything is wired and how we all are connected. I decided to look into how we are actually using this connectivity. It turned out that we in fact are not taking advantage of it. You know, if an allian came here it would be embarrassing. I would imagine him saying: “Listen guys you all are so connected but how come you are not creating the world the way you want it to be? You all want similar things after all.” So in essence there is lack of communication and sharing between people.
We’ve been working on this ideas for four years and it took two years to realize that it’s still not out there. During this time we have been scanning Internet and checking for similar things but we couldn’t really find anything so we thought then we have to do it. This is how Gadogi came to be.
How is it different from other social collaboration platforms and networks?
Gadogi is very focused and has simple but effective filtering mechanism. You come to Gadogi to share your passion and get projects done. Facebook and other platforms are doing their job well but at the same time they have too much noise. Everything becomes a distraction. So in Gadogi, for instance, there is no “wall” or chat. It’s just a working space: here is what I’m doing and here’s what I need.
Another thing is that users miss many things when they are not online. Posts simply disappear in the newsfeed or down the timeline so it is difficult to find interesting things your friends have shared. But in Gadogi you can see many updates and requests at the same time on your page so nothing gets lost and it’s also contextualized and related to what you are doing. We don’t need another blog or another social network so we wanted to keep it strict to the point.
What future do you see for Gadogi?
We would like to build an organization and continue growing at a certain pace not to loose the momentum. So we are working on building a network right now. Later on we want to have web TV so that people can follow projects and contribute to them in an even more interactive and inspiring way.
Another step on the way is building an app for mobile devices. Imagine you have an idea and want to capture it. So you use Gadogi app to save your thought and once you use the Internet it goes up right in the place you want it to be at. We are doing some testing now and it should be coming soon for various platforms.
What is your business model?
We are using our own resources and all the spare time to work on Gadogi. Many people are contributing in lots of different ways and we hire some outside help when we need things done but of course we would like to get funding as well.
We don’t want to spam people with ads. So we have created a business model that is sustainable from the beginning. The portal is free for individuals and networks to create projects and groups but we will charge a fee for bigger event solutions and usage of our products within larger organizations.
Gadogi is fairly simple to navigate. What I personally like about it is neatly arranged online working space that can be shared with friends and colleagues. No spamming, no distractions, just a place to organize ideas and get inspiration. Thank you, Torkel and Thomas, and good luck to your project!
