“Your social network is owned by advertisers.”
“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.”
These are the words that greet you on registering your interest in invite-only social network Ello, which is proving hugely popular at the moment. It remains to be seen whether this brash new social network, which visually resembles a minimalist twitter, will prove to be a ground-breaker or a flash in the pan. What is apparent is that it is interesting techno-commentators and causing anxiety among the establishment that its creator, Paul Budnitz, evidently means to oppose.
David Gerzof Richard, president of BIGfish Communications, said: “Already, I’m hearing that people like the platform. It has an artistic feel that’s appealing to people, whereas Facebook is seen as a colouring book where you have to stay between the lines.”
There is much controversy regarding how a network without any adverts or user-data sales will take on the big-boys using only meagre earnings from sales of extra functionality. However, the incontrovertible truth is that, at the moment nearly 40,000 new users are requesting invitations to Ello every hour. Whether it will be the next Facebook or the next Friendster does indeed remain to be seen but, for now, it is making definite ripples in the social networking pond.
The last thing that Ello tells those who read the manifesto is that they “are not a product”. It all really depends on whether they agree.
https://ello.co/beta-public-profiles