Ello, 'ello, what's all this then? We take a spin on the new social network driving everyone loopy The history of social networks is littered with failures. Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, all have fallen by the wayside. Now Ello wants to add Facebook to that list: the invitation-only network has been growing by leaps and bounds of late. Google Play redesign Invitation-only at present and Ello warns there's a line ahead ( …
It's a transitive verb in British English, usage as a noun is marked as 'colloquial'. 'Invitation' is the noun in Britain, but our US cousins are more laid back about nounifying verbs. I imagine that speakers of Hungarian, with its wonderfully complex grammatical structure, are sensitive to this kind of thing.
> the stress is on the front syllable in case of verb, the end in case of noun.
Stress on the last syllable? That would be invité (nasalised initial "i"), a straight borrowing from French meaning a non-specifically-female singular entity that has been invited. Or for short: "invited one".
The action of inviting someone is called an "invitation". *Invite is a noun in the same way *fail (correct form in most instances: failure) is: that is to say a neologism restricted to very colloquial and/or uneducated speech.
And yes, I know about language evolutive processes and the difference between normative and descriptive approaches, etc.
Facebook wasn't VC funded and look what it is today. As the Reg article says, they have shareholders to satisfy.
From what I have read, Facebook makes $175 per member. I would spend that much in a year for a site like Ello that didn't use me for social testing and sell what I say to advertisers etc.
"I wonder how many people would pay $175 a year for a social network."
That's the issue - at the moment there are essentially two models of operation
1. You are the product
2. You pay an annual subscription
The former is in the ascendency because most people are unwilling to pay and prefer "free" whilst not realising that they already paid with their privacy. As for (2) you could pay a subscription and still find there was gradual privacy creep as greed crept into the ownership base.
You raise an interesting point. I'm somewhat interested in the idea of facebook killers, particularly because Facebook has a progressively intrusive form of trying to track non-facebook users. Sorry Zuck, but if I choose not to join your veal-fattening pen then you do not have the right to track me over the web.
Moreover, the idea that someone can operate without a facebook account seems akin to asserting that one doesn't venture on the web. The choice is: paedo or luddite. Pick one. Okaaaaaaaay.
The entire concept of social networks seems like such an utter bag of spanners that I'd rather sit this one out even if I do count myself as a well-wisher* to Ello / Diaspora et al.
* Well-wisher is the Moe Syzlak (sp?) version, in that I don't wish them any specific harm.
@Hud Dunlap,
"Facebook wasn't VC funded"
Er, then who were Accel Partners?
Everyone investing in a start up is looking for an exit at some point, even the original founders. VCs are just another source of money and expertise, both useful things to a wannabe Zuck.
For what it's worth, a subscription based social network has a great deal of potential to be ad free because there's an actual revenue stream. Increased subscriptions is an easier way to drive profits. A free-to-use social network is inevitably going to be stuffed full of ads: someone has got to pay for the electricity bill.
"A free-to-use social network is inevitably going to be stuffed full of ads: someone has got to pay for the electricity bill."
You've never used LISTSERV, IRC, USENET or FTP, I presume.
Synchronous and asynchronous Internet communications existed long before the WWW was an itch in TBL's pants. They still exist, and are advert-free (spam not withstanding ... spam is cost-shifted advertising, and doesn't pay for the cost of the servers that it infests).
It seems like a beta because it is.
I requested an invite on a lark and got this email:
Thank you for your interest in Ello.
We will invite you as soon as we can. Ello is currently in beta, and we are inviting new users in small groups as we roll out new features.
In the meantime, please share our Manifesto — and help us spread the word.
> We will invite you as soon as we can. Ello is currently in beta, and we are inviting new users in small groups as we roll out new features.
Quite. I have a sneaking suspicion that all the media buzz that this (so far) insignificant little website has generated is merely an excuse for a few journo's to brag that they got invitations before anyone else.
Im really looking forward to a Facebook replacement one day but Ello has a long way to go.
The first thing that jumped out at me is the fact they dont have any mobile apps. Its not going to get anywhere near FB or Twitter until they get mobile apps with notifications up and running.
Yes, I got my ello invitation recently and there are a *lot* of FB users I know currently jumping ship.
The reason has little to do with ads though, and here perhaps ello is slightly barking up the wrong tree. Most sensible users have adblock enabled anyway, so the intrusion from adverts is pretty small.
Certainly there have been many disgruntled users seeing their reach dropping off a cliff since FB decided to find ways to force them to pay for extended reach, but that's also been an annoyance rather than a reason to switch.
It's the intrusion into how users can portray themselves on the system that's really at the root of the exodus. My business concerns performers of many types, and they seldom want to use their real names in a public place. When Google tried the same trick with G+, they had a similar backlash. They've now removed that restriction, and I've seen a similar move by performers to try G+, as well as ello.
The thing ello currently has going for it over G+ is that it's simple, but that simplicity is based on very limited functionality, which is also it's weakness. Many users are already complaining that they can't actually do very much on ello.
My own web site is my primary way of staying in contact with performers, managing cast lists, media, etc. and my business only makes use of social networks for inbound marketing. As such, I'm not too bothered which social network they all end up using.
But I can tell you they are really unhappy with FB. They don't much like the G+ interface and find ello a bit sparse on features, so the jury is very much out on where they will choose to go, but they are actively looking at ways to leave FB, so it's just a matter of time before they do.
Until someone flags it as happened to hundreds of people recently who Facebook now insists they provide a real name and birth certificate:
Personally I'm fine with paying a little money for a service. The thing about ads is that it's all about volume (as they have a really low return rate) and it doesn't take much actual direct payment from your users to match or exceed what you get for shovelling ads in their face all day long.
I used to be a Premium Spotify subscriber way back - perfectly happy to pay the modest fees for the ad free service. I only left because these days they insist on Facebook integration and are all about tracking you.
Scroll down the home page and there is a commentary on social networks with which visitors are asked to agree or disagree. The commentary contains the sentence "Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads," which is undeniably false. When you click "I disagree" (which is the only option available to the informed visitor) you are redirected to a page on Facebook where you can "See how ads are served without sharing your information with advertisers".
Ello should have read that page before writing theirs.
Or is it just not paying to scream about itself.
If I had my own diaspora server so that I could keep all my data safe and under my control and not have to answer requests for friending sunglass salestwats you wouldn't know about it unless I invited you to join me on it or vice versa.
That's the whole point of it for some people.
The whole point of "social networking" sites is to monetise communication, but they do not provide anything fundamentally new from a user's point of view. My communication needs are more than covered by email, XMPP, NNTP, telephony (including SMS), and most importantly, my local public house.
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