Social networks are owned by advertisers and that makes every post your share, every friend you make and every link you follow tracked, recorded and converted into data. Companies buy all your data, namely all your personal information so that they can stuff your feeds with more advertising, more products to buy, promote heavy consumption and take advantage from every vulnerable moment of yours to try selling you more.
Ello works with different terms. It privileges people and doesn’t use their data for advertising purposes. It is a social network deeply rooted in human interaction and reasonable social exchanges, with everything made transparent and fair. They declare in their public statement that “people are not products” and indeed they are not, or at least they shouldn’t be treated like so in the realm of social networks.
Ello will roll out an iPhone App starting today and the announcement already covers the homepage of the website. This is good news, as Ello already became a favorite alternative to Facebook ever since last year. Everyone craved for an invite, as this social network provides a more transparent way of making social business. Their popularity increased quickly, with no less than 31.000 invite requests per hour, according to recent declarations from the startup.
They already raised no less than 5.5 million dollars in funding, so there is a lot of space for even mode development on Ello. And this happens already, as the first ad-free social network rolls out its mobile app, creating even higher levels of reach and a larger space to grow.
Ello has made serious investments for redesign and for this app that is already available for social lovers out there. In the future, the guys will launch another app for Android.
However, people still cling to Facebook and the shift to other social networks showed signs of failure in Google+, for instance. The new Ello approach seems more humane, however, and it could be a good sign for a better management of the virtual social space. We all start to hate the ads bombardment and Facebook lives on that for the moment.
Image Source: blogs.wsj.com
