Will Ello Take Over Facebook?
Ello, Ello!
For people who are tired of Facebook ads, there is a new social media network that announces itself as totally ad-free. It's called Ello, It was created as a response to the big social media websites, riddled with ads and who don't care about their users privacy or how they use their data. When Ello was created, Facebook was under fire for forcing the LGBT community to use their 'real' names. Ello, on the other hand, let's you use whatever name you choose to identify with.
These were the reasons which lead to Ello going viral, it marketed itself as an ethical and ad-free alternative to Facebook. Alternative social media websites that won't sell your personal information and will keep you best interests at heart, unlike Facebook, don't always have enough to overthrow Facebook completely. But could Ello be different?
Ello has managed to raise $5.5M from venture capitalist, and in a turn not often seen by social media networks, has registered itself as Public Benefit Corporation. This legally binds them to respecting rules in a charter. Theirs include promising to stay ad-free and to not sell their user's data to advertisers. Nor can it sell Ello to a corporation that won't respect the charter's rules. This promise of a social media network that will actually respect us as a user and that will do its best to better the world, surely would be enough for people to ditch Facebook and join Ello.
Source: bashinteractive.com
However, this is clearly not the case, for many reasons, First of all, Ello works on an invite basis. This means that in order to join you need to receive an invite from someone on the inside. Each new person gets five invites. While this helps to create hype around Ello, it also means that all your friends aren't necessarily on Ello in the same way as they are on Facebook. Even if you were to join the exclusive social media network, there would be no guarantee that your best mates would be there to. What is the point of being a part of a social media network if you can't even stay in touch with your friends?
Furthermore, at the moment, Ello has no revenue. Because it has pledged to be ad-free, how can it make money to sustain itself and to continue to improve? Well Ello might end up relying on paying for a service system. For instance, you might have to pay to add stickers or widgets to customize your Ello profile. Making people pay to use your social media website, especially one where all their friends are absent, is really not the way forward. Ello won't be over-throwing Facebook anytime soon.
Laura is a recent graduate from University of East Anglia in Film and Television Studies, currently interning as a content writer but hoping to one day live off her writing. Follow her @LauraAtSMF.
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Will Ello Take Over Facebook?
Reviewed by Anonymous
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Friday, October 31, 2014
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Reviewed by Anonymous
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Friday, October 31, 2014
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