
Ello: an ad-free social network - alfredxing
https://ello.co
======
chris_engel
I heard a discussion about that thing a couple of days ago in a local radio
show here and they talked about how promising and cool that new social network
is. They also basically said that everyone who thinks it wouldnt make it is
stupid and doesnt know what he's saying.

I don't think they'll be making it. I can't count the projects anymore that
tried to be a "better facebook" or "better whatsapp". The harsh truth ist:
people simply don't care. The number of people caring enough about their
privacy to move to another social network just because of that (that seems to
be ellos single selling point) is very very small. It will only be a couple of
hipsters showing off how cool and different they are. In a couple of weeks,
nobody will talk about ello anymore.

Its a bit sad but thats how it is. Just look at all the other approaches that
have failed already. Even app.net that had a lot of media coverage failed in
the end because people just don't care. Even the oh-my-god-we-are-so-awesome-
and-invite-only trick won't do it for them if they don't satisfy a very strong
need for the users - and they don't; because there is none.

~~~
idlewan
On the other hand, young people (below 18) aren't that much into facebook
anymore.

So maybe in the future, some other social network will emerge.

~~~
ftio
I hear this all the time, and though it may be true that "young people aren't
into Facebook anymore," I think it misses the point.

When Facebook became available to high school students in 2005, teens flocked
to it because it was a novelty, it was one of the few games in town, and it
was, for many, a superior alternative to MySpace, which, for most, had become
a garish nightmare of animated GIFs and auto-playing music widgets.

Today, there are so many options available that teens have little reason to
use Facebook. They aren't as concerned with maintaining old friendships as
adults or twenty-somethings because, well, they don't have many old
friendships. They see, on a daily basis, almost everyone they know and have
ever known, and for those they don't see, Snapchat serves just fine. For now.

As people get older, staying in touch and recording memories feels
increasingly important. Facebook, a sort of nostalgia machine, is much better
at capturing that kind of coherent narrative than, say, Instagram, and so
people naturally migrate there as they leave college and lose touch.

I'd love to see a study that tracks social network usage from age 12 to age
25. My bet, which is obviously informed by a the kind of anecdotes you're
gesturing to above, is that you'd see higher usage of "ephemeral"-type social
networks in the early years (because young kids can't see past their noses and
have relatively few memories) that tracks inversely with usage of networks
whose content has longer-term value as time passes.

------
sloanesturz
This seems pretty similar to [http://app.net](http://app.net) when they
started out. I don't think the "no ads social network" really panned out for
them -- they tried charging users monthly for the site and have since pivoted
so many times they're probably dizzy. Best of luck to ello.co, maybe the NSA
revelations will make everyone a little more careful about who gets access to
what they share!

------
lucb1e
For anyone else who thinks the site is a bit weird and has a hard time finding
their profit model:

> Ello is completely free to use.

> From time to time we offer special features to our users. If we create a
> special feature that you like, you can choose to pay a very small amount of
> money to add it to your Ello account forever.

> The vast majority of Ello's features, the ones that all of us use every day,
> are always going to be free, and we'll keep improving them. When you choose
> to pay a small amount of money for a feature that you get to use, you help
> support Ello as an ad-free network and help us make it better and better.

\-- [https://ello.co/wtf/post/why-no-ads](https://ello.co/wtf/post/why-no-ads)

That sounds like an okay business model to me. Depends what features will be
paid and which will be free, but given the motivation behind creating the site
in the first place, it'll probably be reasonable.

~~~
huhtenberg
> _That sounds like an okay business model to me._

It most likely won't work.

They have recurrent expenses associated with running a service, but they plan
to support it with one-time fees. This has an absolutely uncertain scalability
profile. At some point their existing user base will get all the features they
need and stop paying, meaning that they will need to rely on acquiring new
users for revenue, which in turn will lead to higher expenses. And this starts
to look as a classic pyramid scheme to me (without even considering things
like salaries and dividends).

Alternatively they can try harder to entice people to buy into the features,
but this would mean artificially restricting functionality, castrating the
free feature set, etc. I guess if they got enough momentum, they can get away
with it, but in the end it's not that much better than an ad-based model.

------
arb99
1) Who cares about ads on Facebook? They are not giant ads, or popunders or
whatever. Sometimes they are relevant. The FB page 'ads' (that say they are
sponsored) can be very relevant sometimes. People care more about things like
privacy, and how easy it is to share things ('statuses' / photos / videos)
with certain people.

2) The design (no offense to whoever made it) is a bit weird. Monospaced font?

3) The part where you click on the arrow (on the right of the page). It isn't
clear what that is about. It is 'invite only' but they want you to submit a
photo?
([https://www.dropbox.com/s/wx88cyg0lh3u5j8/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/wx88cyg0lh3u5j8/Screenshot%202014-09-21%2013.06.18.png?dl=0))

4) and the profiles do look (again no offense) like a crappy tumblr blog (with
a touch of instagram, which IMO isn't really a social network (no messaging,
it is just a fancy photo gallery site. No one would call flickr a social
networking site). Maybe thats the kind of audience they are going after... but
it looks a bit amateurish. Whereas facebook, linkedin, even twitter all look a
lot more fine tuned.

5) But profiles seem to be able to have direct outgoing links (no nofollow,
which will encourage spam a little bit), so if it wasn't invite only it would
get filled up with spam quickly.

------
alphonse23
You website broke the back button.

------
sirji
Before a social network becomes famous, it is always ad-free :)

------
Renaud
It's not clear who this new social network is supposed to be for.

If they want everyone, then it will surely fail. Everyone has Facebook already
where their friends and family dwell, and no-one seriously care much about the
NSA (I have nothing to hide!) or that they are the product (people have come
to be tamed and accept ads as a normality of life).

They should probably target a particular audience, like linked in targets
professionals, from what I see, Ello should maybe target designers and
creatives.

Why should there be only one 'social network'?

I'd love a software developer social network where I can make friends, share
some code that would be rendered nicely on screen, have conversations that can
be private or public, ask questions that would otherwise be closed on SO, etc
Same for electronics hobbyists, graphic designers, photographers, ...

Facebook is the lowest common denominator, but it excels at no particular
task: why can't we belong to multiple social networks, each geared toward
something that is central to our life?

~~~
igravious
Geez, a bit of competition would be nice -- makes for better products. So only
Zuckerberg is allowed to mediate all our social communication? Lucky him.

I seriously care much about having my private communication snooped on. I'm
someone.

I hate ads, I'd prefer to pay a social network so that I do not have to see
ads.

> They should probably target a particular audience

> Why should there be only one 'social network'?

A better question is, why do you think that multiple social networks must
serve niches? Why can't they all compete for the same pie just like in
practically all areas of commerce? Are you saying that I should only get my
full-fat milk from company A, my semi-skinned from company B, and my butter-
milk from company C? Because that's what it sounds like. You wouldn't tolerate
that in other areas of your life, why are you unconcerned about it when it
comes to something so personal -- your social communication and its history?

~~~
mcintyre1994
I'm not really up to date on what they're doing at the minute but can I ask
why app.net doesn't meet your requirements? The fundamental difference here
seems to be app.net always charge but ello gives more flexibility around if
and what to buy - or is there something I'm missing?

Also I agree that competition is a good thing here but a social network that's
trying to connect me to everyone like Facebook is going to face serious
network effects obviously, and it'll be seriously hard to become useful for
that purpose.

~~~
mkr-hn
> _The fundamental difference here seems to be app.net always charge_

You answered your own question. Some of us can't afford to throw down several
dollars a month on a social network. The free tier is unacceptably
restrictive. Or was the last time I thought about it.

------
kevinthew
The invite-only thing works when people actually are compelled to sign up for
your site. What is compelling about this? Seriously, I'm already inundated
with a bunch of equally terrible social media sites, why would I indulge
myself the chore of signing up for this one or fish for an invite to it?

------
tatterdemalion
I see nothing on that site that would make me trust it with my data. It says
it won't monetize through ads, but how will it monetize? Is my data involved
other than through targeting ads at me? ? Why should I trust a centralized,
unfederated service with my data as opposed to one that I could host myself
(such as Diaspora)?

The site has a vague privacy policy of sorts related to its Google Analytics,
but that doesn't have anything to do with the data that I would actually
upload and store on the site for 'social networking' purposes.

Also the site itself feels very overproduced; back button is broken et cetera.

I agree completely with the criticism of other services in the "manifesto,"
but nothing about the site suggests its a viable alternative.

------
random42
How do you intent to monetize? In other words, why should I believe this
website will not shutdown till the money/motivation runs out?

------
czottmann
If I understand it completely, they're trying to become a centralized blend of
Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook, and they have no real idea how to make money
except accepting tips for infrequently introduced features.

I wish them good luck but I have major doubts.

Personally, I think I'll stick with #pants, a light-weight blogging engine
coming with a fully decentralized social network built-in. It's free, fully
open-source, and embraces the principles of the IndieWeb movement, which I
think is a great idea.

[http://pants.social/vkk764](http://pants.social/vkk764)

 _Full disclosure: built by my best friend. Other than that, I 'm unbiased._

------
johnchristopher
> We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in
> beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make
> things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

Cool, where is the (open)-source ?

~~~
jejacks0n
I'm a developer at Modeset, we have some open source, and try to contribute
back whenever possible and time permits. If you specifically mean code for the
ello.co product, there will likely be things that come out of it over time --
it's a pretty hard business model to open source stuff that you haven't
completed yet.

[https://github.com/modeset/teaspoon](https://github.com/modeset/teaspoon) for
instance.

~~~
johnchristopher
Ah, I have a better outlook on the meaning of the statement I quoted now,
thank you (sorry for the harsh one-liner).

------
plumeria
[https://diasporafoundation.org/](https://diasporafoundation.org/)

------
adventured
Scroll down, scroll up, then try hitting back to leave the site.

One of the most annoying things you can ever do to me as a user.

------
shmerl
If it's not decentralized it doesn't solve major issues of most social
networks around there.

------
binarymax
Hint: if you are starting a social network, let people sign up as soon as you
go public. The number of users you have is what will make or break you.
Denying immediate entry is turning away your customers, most likely for good.

~~~
ebzlo
Not necessarily, Facebook started in the MySpace-era and was restricted.
Sometimes exclusivity can be a perk.

~~~
toyg
For Facebook, exclusivity was a feature because it was directly related to
craved social status (belonging to an elite university). For GMail,
exclusivity worked because it was directly related to craved features (large
capacity for email attachments).

I don't see "lack of ads" as particularly craved by users. My wife actively
_wants_ to see ads (to the suffering of my credit card). Unless they find
something else to latch on to, this will end up being yet another also-ran
social.

------
faenvie
I find it amazing, how some of you "experts" judge without deeper knowledge. A
good part of you without even taking a look. The comments on the bycicles are
downright stupid ignorance.

I am not sure about ello myself, but it seems worth a try for me as a non-
facebook-user. Esp. because of the things statet in ellos manifesto. i maybe
able to judge in a few weeks.

I would have apprecheated, if ello comes from europe or southamerika because
people outside the US (i live in germany) are fed up with the "american-way"
of running things, which facebook is an characteristical case for.

------
mofo
[https://ello.co/budnitz/post/cwGa3WXn4xz3zUsxcwCouQ](https://ello.co/budnitz/post/cwGa3WXn4xz3zUsxcwCouQ)

------
NicoleToland
While searching for new social networks, I came across an app called Groopie.
I'm still trying to figure out how to use it but you can record videos with
your friends. You ping them to record. After they are done recording, their
footage will get uploaded to your phone in seconds, then you can edit and
blend the two to create one video. Seems like they are on to something!

------
mikeyla85
Here's a post I wrote that encapuslates a lot of these responses:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-morgenstern/ello-
isnt-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-morgenstern/ello-isnt-going-
to-work-s_b_5879942.html)

------
webulator
It's not secure or encrypted, they see everything you do and so therefor so
can others. A next gen mobile app called Kover is in beta in the apple
AppStore. It's completely encrypted and works either facebook and Twitter
even.

------
leke
What advantage does ello have over a popular and established ad free SN like
diaspora?

------
lovamova
Better alternative than Ello at [http://sublevel.net/](http://sublevel.net/)
which is already a few months old.

------
onedev
"Paul Budnitz conceives and creates beautiful products that change the world."

Yeah. Ok. Great, thanks for changing the world.

~~~
abrkn
Just look at this bike[1]!

[1] [http://budnitzbicycles.com/](http://budnitzbicycles.com/)

~~~
nobodyshere
Ok, now that's the world changer. Except there's nothing unique about that
bike.

~~~
guigar
It comes with a bottle opener attached. Definitely a world changer.

