I’ll gladly accept an invite if there’s any available. scothand@gmail.com
Every link I’ve gone through to actual postings show the text really blurred, though.
Like the Courier font is rasterized. Is it just me viewing the posts “as an outsider”, my web browser, or part of the aesthetic?
Sigh. Over before it began.
That’s exactly what they wanted you to think. If they had mentioned that they’d received half a million dollars of VC funding and that they would inevitably be expected to pay it back and turn a profit, you might not have signed up and handed over your info.
Exactly. Or as I put it on my web site: No, I am not interested in joining your proprietary social network.
And about that plan to monetize ello using a freemium model: Has everyone forgotten that Facebook’s been trying to do that for years and generally failing? Remember the Facebook cards with Facebook dollars you could spend on premium Facebook games? Or the attempt to sell digital birthday gifts that failed and was discontinued? Or perhaps you’ve seen the latest attempt, ads for premium Facebook Messenger stickers?
2 Likes
I’d love an invite if any have spare 
jackdavinci at gmail dot com
i’m not even sure how meta that is. something something cake.
3 Likes
The mechanism by which they will pay back their VCs is like the purloined letter: hidden in plain sight.
Take a look at the privacy policy and consider the verbiage about affiliates.
AFAI’m concerned, it’s a hole in their beautiful smoke about not selling out their users that is precisely and carefully sized.
Sized to allow truckloads of (hoped for) money to drive through.
(In any event UX is still a trainwreck and a friend’s attempt to perform a simple search last night crashed the application… for everyone.)
1 Like
Hey, if people still doing invites I’d like one! Username above @gmail.com! Thanks!
Ello has a visible means of support - VC seed money. What they don’t have is a visible means of revenue, which means that by the time they’ve burned through 3/4 of their initial funding, they’ll have either found a revenue model (whether it’s ads or monthly fees or selling tulip bulbs to bigger VCs) or else they’ll be starting a death spiral, and it’ll be time to make sure you’ve got copies of any postings you like in a more secure storage system.
But that’s ok - the biggest risk to a social network is that it has to attract a large enough bunch of users to have ongoing conversations that attract more people and have something to offer beyond just “spend a couple of months finding which of my friends from $PREVIOUS_SOCIAL_NETWORK are here now.” If they fail at that, it doesn’t matter if they’ve got a revenue model.
1 Like
Another walled garden where serfs can rent but not own.
3 Likes
He charges $5600 for a “city” bike that’s single speed with subpar components and claims that it’s an answer to cycling problems that don’t actually exist, including the same rant that things have been over-marketed and this bicycle brings things back to simplicity. I think I see a pattern here…
5 Likes
The more I think out this, the more I hate it. It is common for a web startups to have slightly underpants-gnomeish tendencies. However I think by explicitly turning all those self-imposed restrictions into selling points they have really painted themselves into a corner.
What is their even vaguely plausible best case scenario? One that doesn’t involve selling out their users, I mean. Assuming that it catches on, what will happen two years from now? Will the revenue stream fairy give them something that nobody has thought of before? Will they announce their exit and explain how they are totally sure that the new owners will stay true to the vision in the new and exciting times ahead?
1 Like
I’m on (as tikinaut). Not really sure what I’m doing there yet. Or why really, but maybe it’s enough just to push a lot of buttons.
1 Like
Geez I’d really like to try Ello, but it’s apparent that this Paul Budnitz character is a capital Shitbag who will eventually sell you and your information without notice to not just the highest bidder, but every bidder.
That’s what the rest do, I know, but the difference is we know that they do.
This Ello thing is a great scam in this regard because eventually Paul Budnitz will be able to offer prime information, gathered under the premise that it would not be sold or sold at, that would put his product a step above what is already on offer, albeit likely at a lower volume.
I imagine a bunch of people who may be savvy enough to keep much from facebook et al might be suckered, but given just how many people don’t give a care to what they give away, it probably doesn’t matter.
3 Likes
I use FB, and I’m seeing people there who sign right up for Ello on the premise that it won’t do bad things that FB does, without giving a moment of consideration to the notion that it WILL do exactly those things.
What are they thinking? Are they thinking?
6 Likes
Yeah, I had a feeling there was some sort of technology behind it. I suspect the system is also running through a Hampsis 580 tie breaking support with back up scripts connecting del-fi haibtrails. There’s a lemon circuit in there somewhere triumperfying user cladnats too, but I don’t know if they keep it turned on or not.
5 Likes
me me me… i’d appreciate an invite… noddy93atgmail
fanx
It’s not weird to listen to people’s promises. That’s the premise of this article, in fact! They promise a lot. App.net also did and didn’t betray people (but couldn’t create a compelling value in their system). I don’t want to invest my time in a new network without having unbreakable assurances — which haven’t yet been provided. They can write contracts with users that prevent them from ever changing the terms of how they use data, and they haven’t done that yet. (If they broke those promises, the FTC would be able to get involved, as well as civil and perhaps class-action lawsuits.)
1 Like
I don’t like the way you can’t pinch-zoom the feed. I’m suspicious of any site that tries to control the user.
Cute but why bother when Diaspora ( https://diasporafoundation.org/ ) is already around? Diaspora is a distributed network client, so your social life is not controlled by a single central server. If you have a quarrel with the person running your part of the Diaspora network, you can pull all of your content off his place and set up somewhere else, or start your own server to connect with others. Ello’s promises are weak tea compared to that amount of control.
5 Likes
