Ello is now officially a
thing, and they're promising a 'no ads' social media alternative to Facebook. Hardly anything functions on Ello at the moment, but I kind of like the refreshing lo-tech aspect to it; limitations can force creativity and that's cool. Mind you, there have been some
not-so-cool murmurings about Ello's business model; as in venture-capital-masquerading-as-indie-makers.
Another incarnation of The Man? We shall see. Ello is certainly appealing to social media's early adopters.
In the meantime, it's really fucking hilarious to watch all the Ello noobs stumbling around in the dark.
It reminds me of when
Google+ started...all actors shouting on the stage and no one in the audience.
I'm hopeful. What's your Ello @? Mine is
@theanimatedwoman.
I heard mentions of Ello on Twitter. Do we really need ANOTHER social media site? Google + didn't exactly light up the world. Nowadays, whenever a new social media experiment fires up, people hop on less because they think it's the next big thing, but more as insurance in case it does catch on. Also, how can it be "invitation only" if you can just request an invitation from Ello itself? Pseudo exclusivity to mimic Facebook's early days I'd wager.
ReplyDeleteExcellent points Pickleope. In fact, do we really need ANY social media sites? And the "invitation only" thing speaks to the fragility of our human egos in wanting to be included. Those fuckers are manipulating us! Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the early daze of any social media platform. It's worth it to lurk about just to see who's going to bump into who.
DeleteI spend so much time on the dang computer and on social media, that I don't know what rock my head was under to have missed the onset of this whole ello thing. But now I feel like the kid in gym class waiting to be picked for the kickball team. And I'm torn. On one hand I don't want to feed the machine, on the other, I agree - the first days of any social media platform before it gets crazy are always sweet. And then there is the omg - not another one. How to keep up with the eleventy-hundreth social media platform? Oy and vey.
ReplyDeleteThe flop of google plus always perplexed me as I really loved their circles. I think two things played into their failure to launch. First off, google was already large established commercial enterprise coupled with two, poor timing. I think Ello is showing up at a point when Facebook seems increasingly all about the corporate machine. Bloggers I know are getting their posts shown to 3% of their followers. I think it is reaching saturation. People may have complained before but many people are truly fed up. I've seen more engagement in the last 72 hours on Ello than I ever saw on G+. I don't think ello will replace Facebook but I think it may become a new place some people may prefer to hang out.
ReplyDelete