Ello: the anti-Facebook social network

Are you tired to be treated as a product, something to sell to advertisers and to be spied every second of your life? Than leave Facebook! 😀

Just kidding, but, it’s not a news that Facebook, uses our data, pictures, messages, likes and personal details to collect a huge amount of targeted data to be sold to the better bid. Yes, because the Social of the Social is today the better qualified ads-platform where target your audience.

It can be obvious to the most but Facebook is tracking every action you do inside the platform, not just pictures, status, likes and comments. When you use the chat, Facebook tracks what you are talking about to target real-time ads; when you write a comment, and then you decide to cancel it before hit publish, it has already saved that data; or, when you check-in into a new place the Big Blue Brother knows you are there and he can show you custom local ads.

Of course the platform is completely free, but you have to pay somehow isn’t it? So it’s pretty fair, you are selling your life, your intimacy, your thoughts, your feelings for FREE. Or better you get back a new social drug, called Facebook 😀

A new anti-Facebook

So, what if there’s a new social, an anti-Facebook which can set you free from ads and from sharing your personal information with advertisers?

This social exists and its name is Ello.

Ello is a simple, beautiful, and ad-free social network created by a small group of artists and designers.

The manifesto specifies that  “Your social network is owned by advertisers and 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. We believe there is a better way.”

So the goal is simple: run a new kind of social media completely ad-free, now and forever, where people can keep in touch with friends and new people without being overwhelmed by thousands of ads.

The numbers

Ello is literally exploding in these days and, last week, over 4,000 users an hour joined the network! Later this week the number of new requests to join the social are 32,000 per hour!  The only one problem right now is that you can join Ello just if you have an invitation. You can ask to join it but it’s apparently not so easy, also because the tremendous echo of these days.

“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. You are not a product.” Said one of the developer.

Functionalities

Users reported the UI is pretty clean and simple. You can decide to share thoughts and pictures as you do on Facebook but you can split people in lists: “Friends” and “Noise”. So you can split friends from people you “follow” or you barely know.

Another feature, pretty different from Facebook, is the privacy policy. You can decide to share or not your personal information and this opens some security problems, since you don’t have to verify your identity. As you know, a recent change of Facebook’s policy, the ‘Legal Name Policy’, invites you to use your ID name and surname.

The end of Facebook?

This is not the first time an anti-Facebook try to attack the Social power. Do you remember Path, Diaspora and App.net?

So will Ello be the definitive anti-Facebook and finally crash its power? The answer is: Facebook is too big to be menaced, he can acquire, change features and evolve, but it will never die. Or at least, not because of Ello!

What do you think? Are you going to join this social ad free?