Suddenly a bunch of FB friends are talking about this newish invite-only social media site that totally caught me by surprise.
Another Diaspora?
The site appears to be a collaboration between bicycle designer and toy maker Paul Budnitz and the graphic design lab Berger & Föhr. Though new social networks have trouble catching on when the appeal is simply better design, the promise of “simple, beautiful & ad free” brings to mind the flight from the increasingly gaudy MySpace toward a cleaner Facebook.
The manifesto has a kind of an Anonymous-like messianic tone, bringing to mind concerns over data brokers and NSA spying. But for all the invasiveness and commercialization of data that a company like Facebook is guilty of, it’s never been shown that people care enough to leave.
Still, part of Ello’s mystery is that it defines itself by what it’s not, which could be seen as a clever use of negative space, or could just be seen as vague. So what’s the product?
“You are not a product,” the manifesto says. Right then.
In March a new social network launched promising the opposite business model to Facebook, i.e. not selling ads based on user data and instead relying on, perhaps, paid premium features to keep going. Ello then sunk without a trace until, in the last 24-48 hours or so, activity on the site completely blew up. And this is a pretty basic social network with the bare minimum of features. Why? A combination of factors.
Perhaps it was Facebook’s trenchant stance against LGBT users having both a real name and ‘persona’ name. Ello got traction with the LGBT community after Facebook disabled the accounts of some drag artists who used their performance names instead of their “real” names. Musicians with stage names have also complained.
Or perhaps it was famous drag queen Ru Paul tweeting about it?
No one quite knows. But as of today, most of your friends will be asking their other friends how to get an invite to the invite-only network to secure their coveted user name.
On Ello, as on Twitter, real names are not required.
But there are downsides to the network. There is a lack of privacy controls. It’s not possible to block someone who is abusive. But Ello has already e-mailed users saying these features are coming.
We’ve seen Facebook alternatives, like Diaspora, come and go. Or ones like Google+ come then fall flat.
Ello might be onto something more organic. Diaspora was certainly too geeky and probably way too early. Perhaps it’s Ello’s time?
Today co-founder Paul Budnitz said they will remain “Ad-Free and Porn Friendly”.
Just anecdotally, I noticed all of my drag friends jump on the Ello bandwagon before RuPaul tweeted about it. It certainly seems to be a case of grassroots buzz, not promotion by major entities. That could give it a bit more traction than Google+ had, but remaining ad-free seems unsustainable. Who’d want to pay a subscription fee for a social network?
For my part, I’m trying to stay off this one. But I did think this Mark Zuckerberg Ello account was cute.
I don’t think they’re doing subscriptions, they’re going to try to monetize it via an app store where you can make one-time purchases for additional functionality.
I don’t understand that article. He complains that Ello took VC money, which implies that they do have some sort of monetization plan. But isn’t that obvious? Would he be complaining if Ello had taken a loan instead?
Ok, but “You are not the product” does not mean “We will never make any money.”
IMHO, “You are not the product” means “You are the customer.” It implies they will be selling features directly to users via IAP or subscription, rather than selling information about users to third parties. Basically, taking the Apple/Amazon approach rather than the Google/Facebook approach.
But, if what he suggested in the article is correct (re: venture capital), then Ello is now on track to get as much product (people) as possible for the initial investment so they can use the product (people) as leverage to get a substantial return on that investment and then byebye. They are in it for the short-term gain, not the long-term “let’s tackle the Facebook behemoth” crusade.
What do you mean by “bye-bye”? Someone must be in it for the long-term, if not the founders then whoever ends up buying the company. If Ello is any good, then the only way anyone is going to see a return on investment is to keep on doing whatever they are doing.
And isn’t getting bought out pretty much the goal of many or even most tech startups? Of course, it’s possible that whoever buys the company, say Facebook, will choose to bury it. But VC funding has nothing to do with that outcome.
I think the article is just pointing out, though, exactly what rei said above. Ello made a big deal over being different than Facebook but, behind the scenes, they are going to be treating their users the same way, as a means to make investors/founders money by selling the info at some point (not solely by monetizing the network). And from my understanding of what is written, that’s short-term (hence my “byebye” reference).
I suppose it’s the difference between being purely idealistic and behaving as a “protest” project and just being another social network. They are relying on the former to draw in users.
I should point out, though, that I’m not bothered by it either way. I just think it’s a valid point-of-view to take in light of the “anti-facebook” chatter.
Ello only claimed they would not sell advertising or sell user info to third parties (no, new owners don’t count). The article assumes that this policy would change if a new owner took over the company. I see no evidence of that, and surely the VC knows it would be self-defeating. Why would anyone want to buy the next Google+?
Ello’s growth plan is based on the belief that users are aware of privacy issues and will quickly migrate from networks that don’t provide privacy, like Facebook. Ads are not subtle. Emails with subject “Change to Ello’s Privacy Policy” are not subtle, either. So if Ello no longer provides privacy - its core service - then how does it plan to keep any of its users?
That’s a fair question. Another valid question is how will the VC people be paid back? Surely there’s the expectation that this thing is going to generate revenue somehow, and that revenue will be related to the people who use the site in some way. It’s something like this:
They’ve explained that Step 2 will be IAP for additional features. The example they used was the ability to manage multiple profiles with a single sign-on, for people that manage company/public accounts.
The bump in ello is directly attributable to Facebook shutting down user accounts that do not have a “real name.” My wife has used the same internet pseudonym since use.net – longer than married name. She has known people for almost 20 years only by her online name. When forced by FB to use a different name (which she gamed by using a literary character), she started getting removed by many long-term friends who didn’t recognize her anymore. Her business sales dropped noticeably. And the “business” accounts require a constant money feed to get pushed out to others and have limited functionality.
This isn’t just a GLBT issue, it’s Facebook using its muscle to force users to make their data easily mineable and chargeable for lower service. People don’t care as much about privacy as usability. That’s where twitter and instagram snuck into the social media market. FB could do itself some significant damage if another competitor jumps on this misstep.
I think they could do damage, but it will not affect their userbase overall. They have a critical mass of people signed up for that account that few can actually move to another service and maintain the same level of connectability (yah, I made up a word). The same happened with G+. The answer I usually get when I bring up the 'hey you should make an account on G+" is “why should I when all my friends are on Facebook?”.
