MONTPELLIER, Vermont. In just a few days, a new Internet social network called Ello, presented as the "anti-Facebook," is on its way to becoming the most popular destination on the world wide web.
Ello, which was created in 2013 as a “private” social network, recently opened its doors to all Internet users. Due to the limited number of “seats” and high demand, invitations to Ello are being sold on the auction site eBay for $500 each. According to Internet traffic monitoring companies, the Ello page has been receiving 35,000 requests per hour in the past week.
“Ello does not sell advertising space to companies. Nor do we sell your data to our customers. We believe that a social network can be a tool of liberation, not a method of deception, manipulation, and exploitation. You are not a product!” states Ello’s manifesto, which emphasizes that “collecting and selling private data to companies is unethical.”.
Its creators
Headquartered in Vermont, USA, the cradle of many modern movements challenging consumer society, Ello was created by a team of artists and computer programmers, under the guidance of Paul Butnitz, a bicycle and robot designer.
Social media expert Nathan Jurgenson at the University of Baltimore says: “These are the best moments in the history of social media: the beginning of the conversation, the presentation of the first idea and the questioning of everything we knew up to that point. Ello is monopolizing attention these days because it promises a new policy for these networks. Many have now realized that social media has concentrated too much power in the hands of a few and that this must change.”.
Ello's rise coincides with a major campaign against Facebook in San Francisco over the notoriously modest site's decision to remove "profiles" of transgender artists who used their pseudonyms. Ello does not require its users to provide their real names.
Source: kathimerini.gr
