Nate Swanner

Youve probably seen Ello pop up on your RSS feed (or however you happen to keep up with information) over the past few days. The new social media site has been dubbed the anti-Facebook, due to its strikingly sparse interface and promise to not make you the product. To gauge how accurate that is, I went inside to discover what Ello is, and who it isnt for.

To my mind, Ello is like any other bootstrap startup. Its simple, pretty effective at one thing, and simple enough to grasp. Those who try to over-complicateEllo do it a disservice. Its social, just a different take on what that is, and means.

For Ello, the goal is to feed you info on a macro scale. Its like a warehouse full of people who somehow heard that there was a party there. A party may happen, but were all a bit early to the event. You know, if a party actually breaks out.

Posting is dead simple, and you can mention people you follow via the familiar "@" tag. Finding new users is easy via "discovery". You can upload pics or GIFs to a post, too. That's really about it. Being beta, there aren't many bells and whistles yet.

Though simple, Ello might sufferfrom being a bit too open. Its social without boundaries. You dont have to use a real name, a picture, or even give any info about yourself. If you like vacationing in Ibiza, Ello will speak to you. They still ask for responsibility from users, but that's self-regulation, and social media doesn't lend itself to that.

Thats not to say Ello is void of reason or cause, though its just different. Their ethos is that you arent the product, but thats a bit obfuscated by a few facts. Theyve raised nearly half a million dollars in venture funding, and will charge for features down the line.

To their credit, backers say theyre fine with Ellos current trajectory. Ello also doesnt seem to be aiming for a big spend from users. Things like managing multiple accounts with one log-in will cost around $2. Thats not a lot, but could speak to the true aim, here.

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Ello review: its not the anti anything