If you follow the internet, which you probably do, you’ve now heard of Ello.
Ello is all the rage, especially amongst the defenders of the free, advertising-liberated internet. Even Tom from MySpace is kickin’ around, repeatedly poking fun at his former default popularity on MySpace. (And the fact that MySpace is now, essentially, irrelevant).
Even Tom from MySpace is on Ello.
Screenshot from https://ello.co/myspacetom.
So what’s the scoop with this bare-bones social media network? Deemed by some as the “hipster” social network, Ello has branded itself as the antithesis to Facebook. According to its manifesto, Ello will have be completely ad-free, will never charge a dime for access (but will be “freemium” by charging for additional services), and will never sell user information to third parties.
Recently, Ello has exploded. There have been reports that the site is getting between 4,000 and 30,000 account requests per day. A staggering number for a social media site essentially in Beta. If reviews are positive from initial users, Ello could be on the cusp of becoming the next big thing.
But will it be?
As Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols noted on ZDNet, there’s a lot of people who have been quite unhappy with Facebook. Some of it has to do with the mood-experimentation that it completed on users without permission. Some of it has to do with their “real name” rule that has affected numerous members of the LGBT community. But is this really enough to convince 1 billion users of Facebook (or even a sizeable fraction) to leave for something new?
Admittedly, I have not yet received my invitation to Ello, although I requested it multiple days ago. I was initially quite intrigued but have now lost a lot of my interest. The whole idea of a completely ad-free social media platform is definitely attractive. But Ello really offers nothing new. It’s been online since March and it still has a number of basic features which are listed only as “coming soon,” including: user blocking and a notification centre. These two features have become almost integral on social platforms. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see much of a point in developing or sharing any content if I’m not even going to be notified when someone interacts with it. What motivation do I have to actually make my profile interesting?
I feel like the strongest argument on generating content on Ello is to be individualistic. To have an online profile that defines “me.” A utopian profile free of advertising and without Big Brother tracking my keywords. But with such a minimalistic theme and a platform driven by, seemingly, visual content – what’s the difference between Ello and Tumblr besides a few visual tweaks? What feature would cause me to actually interrupt my natural time spent on Facebook (where thousands of people in my network are) for a brand new site. I don’t think Ello is there yet – but with the added attention it’s been getting, they better start figuring it out or people will say goodbye as quickly as they’ve said Ello.
Ello logo from ello.co
Sound Off: What are your thoughts on Ello? Are you a fan? Do you think it will survive? Comment below, or tweet me @aclavers.
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