Can Ello Convince Facebook Fans to Say Farewell?
Facebook may have garnered 1.3 billion users since its inception a decade or so ago, but today there's an upstart contender that has set its sights on much of that same social networking world.
"Simple, beautiful and ad-free" is Ello's tagline, and the new social network is gaining considerable attention. Though it's still in invitation-only beta, it was reportedly gaining more than 30,000 new users per hour as of late last week.
"Your social network is owned by advertisers," reads Ello's manifesto. "Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that's bought and sold."
Aiming to offer an alternative, the site says it believes "that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership. We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate -- but a place to connect, create and celebrate life."
In fact, Ello doesn't consider networks like Facebook as competition "because they aren't really social networks," Ello spokesperson Rachel Fukaya told the E-Commerce Times. "They're advertising platforms."
Ello, on the other hand, "is a social network -- that's all we do," Fukaya said.
As for monetization, "Ello is still a business -- sort of like the app store, the main features of Ello will always be free," she explained.
To keep the site afloat, "for a very small amount of money we are going to sell special features that certain users may want to add to their account," Fukaya said. "We have thousands of people writing in requesting features they would be willing to pay for."
In the big picture, "we're proving that there's a different way to make money than selling ads, and can save the Internet from becoming one giant billboard," Ello's Fukaya concluded. "There's a better way, and we're building it."
Ello reportedly endured a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack early this week and lived to tell the tale.