Where’s Ello gone, and what can we learn from it about social media at large?
Jo Bromilow, Senior Digital Consultant
But once the public at large became aware of the new hot thing, the cracks started to show. Design sites were quick to point out the issues with Ello’s very, erm, minimalist aesthetic – considering most social networks can, like supermarkets, be identified simply by a colour, the fact that Ello has no colour in its basic design is a statement and a half – while those in the industry were desperate to pick holes in the site’s grand claims to be for the good of the users.
I was one of them. Given Ello’s grand claim to never sell user data and never run ads, I was curious to find out more about Ello’s ethics and its eventual, inevitable grand plan to turn a noble goal into a money-making machine. (Ello has since confirmed that it will eventually charge for a premium version of the service.) As well as that, I was curious to find out a little more about what this ‘collective of artists’ that promotes user rights above all others had built into their terms of use to protect these users both from themselves and from Ello. Because a large part of the public-at-large’s issues with the Big Bad of the social world, Facebook, stems from this public not necessarily reading or caring about the Ts&Cs when it signed up, I thought I’d take a look at what was contained in Ello’s, and what this can teach us about what it means to be a social network in the modern age.
Good behaviour – Ello’s policy on hate speech
A big one that Facebook , Twitter, Tumblr et al repeatedly fall down on is the prevalence of gender-based abuse on their networks; Ello’s Rules include orders not to post hate speech relating to ‘race, sexual orientation, religious or political belief, age, or just about anything else’. No specific mention of gender or gender-related issues. Naivety on the part of Ello, or not something they deem as worthy of stating? On a more positive note, however, Ello seem to be taking potential fake profiles seriously – users are required to upload a profile photo and could have their profile deleted if they fail to do so – which could be a positive step should the issue of culpability ever arise.
Brands – Ello’s policy on impersonation, automation and spam
Clearly this isn’t intended to be a marketing/brand platform, as Ello states that it’s a platform ‘for human beings’ and isn’t for mass fan growth, automates posting, or marketing. No surprises there and especially given that they don’t intend to make money from advertising, giving brands leeway to behave on Ello as they do on Facebook and Twitter would likely be a contradiction. Excluding brands, or at least making the claim that the site does not welcome brands, from this site so early on in the game is a good show of commitment to their values. But rules can be changed…as they state later. And that hasn’t stopped a few brands from getting in on the game – Netflix being a notable example. What brand can resist a shiny new potential engagement platform, after all?
Artists, creative and original content – Ello’s policy on copyright infringement
A big one that image sharing giant Pinterest fell down on early on was the issue of copyright infringement, and whose responsibility it was if such an activity took place on Pinterest by a private user. Like Pinterest, Ello uses its rules to wash its hands of responsibility for individual cases, adding a condition not to post content that ‘violates a law’ (no specifics about country laws, but presumably this is US-focussed as their financial details are) as an half-hearted addition. Considering this is a site built by artists, this seems quite a strange thing to do. Likely because, on the internet as a whole, the issue of copyright is a massive beast, but as a fledgling network Ello had an opportunity to pin down this issue and consider how it, as a site whose founders have so much invested in getting this right, might make things better for artists who have their work uncredited.
For everyone – data storage and paid services
Ello has already stated that they will likely charge for paid services in the future, so that’s answered the question of where they’ll be getting their money to keep maintaining the service (though, since these features haven’t been disclosed and aren’t likely to be until the site reaches a certain capacity, who knows if anyone will pay for them). They’ve also, according to reports, attracted over $5million of funding from various VCs and investors. But what exactly are these VCs paying for? Why would anyone invest that kind of money in a network that has resolutely stated that it will not share or sell user data for financial gain? A spokesperson for of the earliest investors, FreshTracks Capital, told Gigaom that he himself doesn't like the ads model on social networks generally, and that they as a firm practice long-lead investments so the fact that Ello itself seems to have no ‘quick win’ strategy in place to earn them back those big bucks doesn’t worry them. But after all, this is the internet, says the cynic in me. Who has that kind of time? (And by that I also mean the users – word-of-mouth awareness-raising worked for Facebook and Twitter in the early days, but will that work today?)
By comparing this fledging network to the behaviour habits of some of today’s biggest social giants, it seems that the site, while falling down on a few key issues that plagued these networks too, is making a relatively solid go at putting its data privacy where its smiling mouth is. In this regard, it might well stand a chance of continuing to be ‘the anti-Facebook’, albeit a much smaller version. But is it fair to judge Ello on the same level as its nemesis, Facebook, at all? In fact, Ello claims to be providing a public benefit to the point that it has actually filed for registration as a public benefit corporation(which comes with a whole raft of additional stipulations for the founders), not exactly something Facebook’s detractors would accuse it of doing. While Ello has this noble goal in mind to connect not the world, but a smaller community across it, whether this noble goal will satisfy investors remains to be seen.
But before any of this can happen, Ello needs sign-ups. At the start of October, business intelligence company RJMetrics told VentureBeat that Ello had an estimated userbase of 160,000, over a third of whom had never posted on the site. RJMetrics also revealed that compared to the early days activity of major social networks, Ello’s performance levels are comparable, meaning that there could be life in the platform yet.
Just keep an eye on that smiley face…
Do any of you use Ello? What are your thoughts?