‘Ello’ – have you heard of this new ad-free social network site?

You may have heard the recent hype about Ello, a new social networking site, or you may have heard very little about this elusive site. Ello is a new social media site hoping to become the anti-Facebook. Its manifesto states its aims to find a better way of interacting socially online.

So what makes Ello different? Well, Ello has a strict no-ads policy. While other social media sites use ads to gain revenue, Ello is very much against this method. They state that “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. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency.” Interestingly, while they seem very much against the tracking of users, their own site collects information about your location and your use of their site.

They state that they want to ‘empower’ their users rather than ‘manipulate’ them with ads. The other draws of their site are its simplistic design and invite-only system. The minimalism is supposed to allow creativity from its users and to be uncluttered. The invite-only system means that you can only use the site if you have been invited by someone who is already a user. This has led to exclusivity for Ello, making it more desirable to potential users with its mystery and elitism.

Ello has found an increased popularity in recent weeks despite it being launched months ago. At one point, it was receiving 32,000 requests for invites an hour. So why is Ello so popular? Firstly, it is popular with people who hate ads. Many people are increasingly taking the view that capitalism and consumerism are very bad. These are the same people who buy their fruit and vegetables at the farmer’s market and get all of their clothes second-hand in a vain attempt to avoid our society’s culture of consumerism. An ad free site is very appealing to this kind of person.

Ello has also found an audience with the LGBT community. Facebook’s real name policy has led to many complaints from transgender individuals and the deletion of the accounts of a large number of drag queens. Those who do not go by their birth names are free to do so without any issue on Ello, meaning that transgender people, genderqueer people and drag artists can go by their preferred names.

Ello also may be popular because it allows NSFW (not safe for work) content. Sites like Facebook have policies regarding explicit and pornographic content that Ello does not, meaning Ello users are free to post absolutely any content that they desire without repercussions or the risk of deletion or suspension.

The site is also popular with people who have become bored with Facebook and people who are keen to be the first on new sites. Many people have become tired of Facebook and may desire a fresh start; something sites like Ello can provide.

However, the site is still in Beta testing stage. It is not ready for use and lacks many important features, which is very disappointing to many users who finally get an account only to find the site near unusable. According to the Guardian the “site’s design is simplistic to a fault…it is difficult to navigate”. These issues may be resolved when the site emerges from beta testing, but issues like this will take some time to iron out, and social media users can be notoriously impatient. By the time Ello is developed further, many of its users will have moved on to the next big thing, leaving the site as a long-forgotten, short-lived trend.

While “Facebook is trying to connect people in multiple ways”, Ello is trying to catch up with Facebook’s basic functions. Facebook has spent years developing its site, and has spent large quantities of money on development and progress to get it to where it is today. Ello is still in its infancy. It is perhaps too ambitious for Ello to try and compete in any way with a site that has been established as long as Facebook has.

Is Ello sustainable? The answer to this question is probably not. While its lack of a real name policy is an aid to the LGBT community, it also allows for impersonations and anonymity. While these are probably not an issue for Ello right now, it will become an issue in the future with increasing numbers of users. Anonymity is always abused on the internet. If you are not accountable to your own name, users are far more likely to act abusively towards other users. They are not held accountable for their words, and soon Ello will face problems like Twitter encounters with criminal levels of threats, racism, homophobia, sexism, and abusive and derogatory language.

A further issue is where they will source funding for the site from. If they are against advertising then they will have to gain revenue from other sources. They propose that their income will come from optionally available extras. However, systems like this simply do not work. Many sites have tried this and have had to resort to advertising. Sites like Facebook have advertising so that they can avoid charging their users for using the site. Ello will have to find a solution for funding in the long term, and the only solutions may be charging for access to their site or resorting to what they despise most – advertising.