[iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook

Sun Sep 28 00:17:48 UTC 2014

It's been awhile since I've posted and it may have been just an [Introduction] long ago. But Ello's explosion has energized me in a way that hasn't happened for years, since living on the Web.

As I've joined Ello [https://ello.co/profcarroll], seeded my invites, and posited lots of impassioned commentary on both Facebook and Ello, I've observed what others are saying and feeling about this phenom. By far, most of what I am reading on this list and beyond is rather critical, and cynical in a manner that I find a bit unsportsmanlike. Just try to do what they're doing.

It's quickly become a self-appointed duty of mine to be pointing out to everyone talking about Ello that it is an unfinished product that went viral before it was ready. Clearly people are not getting that it's a beta (and probably an alpha for nerds who really know what these cryptic greek letter means in this context). Geek culture may have gotten ahead itself on the day Ello went viral.

I have been trying to comment on the articles circulating about Ello as they've gone sub-viral. You can find my response to Andy Baio [https://ello.co/profcarroll/post/GJVCmSGV2wRpzT4dTOwVKg], Aral Balkan [https://ello.co/profcarroll/post/FyWhpGnva5oZqpylM94n_w], the LGBT un-exodus [https://ello.co/profcarroll/post/6N2o0UkL_apkmXDm7w_YVQ, https://ello.co/profcarroll/post/0TawTiDN7dthtddaTzS8jQ], etc.

As someone who is trying to do something in range of Ello, I have found the hyper-skeptical, naysaying response — where-can-I-poke-a-hole-in-this reflex — rather discouraging. Apparently, there really is a strict litmus test for new social platforms for the purists. It must be opensource, decentralized, insanely viral, perfectly designed, every feature ready upon launch, and magically funded by a financing model that doesn't appear to exist at this time. I'm not going to be able to meet the criteria even though I'm trying to build something bold and amazing that I believe the world needs now. [https://vimeo.com/101013998]

I started as a commercial designer, became a senior academic at my institution, and then decided to pursue tech entrepreneurialism as a research and creative practice trajectory. I wanted to see what I could accomplish in the marketplace, instead of being restricted to the laboratory (and the pathetically slow pace, stifling political correctness, and administrative overhead of grant funding). My new company is making something called Glossy.io while "incubating" at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP in Dumbo, Brooklyn. We were "born" at the NYC Media Lab in a collaboration between Hearst and The New School. Both of these entities are franken-creations of the public-private partnership that is the NYC EDC. It's been a crash course in law, finance, and business. I can speak to a lot of the issues that people are pointing out about Ello because I too have been negotiating convertible notes with investors and scribing privacy policies for users.

In our arrangement at Glossy, the faculty and students retained our IP to the developed concepts. We have negotiated terms with both the university and the corporate sponsor so that we retain control despite immediate investment. We have not (yet) sold our souls. We have raised money from angels and we are looking for a VC that shares our thesis. I feel a kindred spirit to the founders behind Ello because I believe it is possible to seek "good" deals if you know what to ask for. To dismiss this possibility is to be narrow in what's possible. A former graduate student knows the Ello founders very well personally and emphatically vouches for their good-spirit and mindfulness, their respectable ethics, their potential to be deeply inspring people. I, too, naively believe that we can use the system to reform the system, just as I believe that insisting on an unattainable purism in how technology should be made, distributed, and financed is naive, or at least very unhelpful at this time.

My co-founders and I are also making a product that will have to contend with dataveillance as both a design specification (you look at/read stuff on our product and we'll watch you do that to make it even better) and value proposition (we'll keep what you're looking at anonymous until you don't). This is why I'm so impassioned about the discussion around Ello. The explosive demand for their product validates my hypothesis that the market is clamoring for products designed with less dataveillance. People have already demonstrated that they understand a product with less-dataveillance when they see it and they don't even need that word to understand or describe it. We wouldn't be on this thread if that wasn't true. Astonishingly, the market for a paid ad-free social network has been somewhat validated, because Ello Invites are for sale on eBay and many other markets. You can buy one now for a few dollars. This probably means that people will pay at least a few dollars to be ad-free. At an eventual scale of a few hundred-million users, these VCs from Vermont will get their exit without selling us out, so I really don't see why we aren't embracing Ello, at least being patient to see what happens next.

The main reason to embrace *any* viable alternative to Facebook, no matter what it is, is because Zuckerberg's primary directive is to become a commercial credential to identity, your passport to your life. This is why they are strictly enforcing "Real Names" because they want their identity framework to become industrial strength (and a de facto standard), as good as getting notarized. Zuck will own us all when he becomes master Notary Public. It was this impulse that sent LGBT users to Ello and triggered its virality.

- Dave Carroll

On Sep 27, 2014, at 8:00 AM, idc-request at mailman.thing.net wrote:

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>   1. Re: Ello--Alternative to Facebook (Austin Walker)
>   2. Re: Ello--Alternative to Facebook (Steve Rhodes)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 15:30:14 +0000
> From: Austin Walker <awalk4 at uwo.ca>
> To: "=?utf-8?Q?idc at mailman.thing.net?=" <idc at mailman.thing.net>
> Subject: Re: [iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook
> Message-ID: <0NCI00JE5M1N9YB0 at gummo.its.uwo.pri>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> 
> I second many of Christians concerns, especially as more comes to light about Ello's current operation and its potential aspirations. 
> 
> 
> Andy Baio, Ello user @waxpancake, posted this breakdown into Ello?s current funding situation. The long and short of it is that Ello is currently operating with $435,000 of VC. 
> 
> 
> Baio writes: ?But VCs don't give money out of goodwill, and taking VC funding ? even seed funding ? creates outside pressures that shape the inevitable direction of a company.
> 
> 
> Before they opened their doors, Ello became hooked on an unsustainable funding model ? taking cash from VCs ? and will almost certainly take a much larger Series A round once that $435,000 dries up. (Which, at their current burn rate, should be in a couple months.)?
> 
> 
> Worth a read.  (Relinking here, in case the link above doesn?t work: https://ello.co/waxpancake/post/oy73kFfDdhOPh8Jv9z9pFA). 
> 
> 
> -Austin Walker
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: idc-request at mailman.thing.net
> Sent: ?Friday?, ?September? ?26?, ?2014 ?8?:?00? ?AM
> To: idc at mailman.thing.net
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>   1. Re: Ello--Alternative to Facebook (Christian Fuchs)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 10:23:21 +0100
> From: Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs at uti.at>
> To: "idc at mailman.thing.net >> idc" <idc at mailman.thing.net>
> Subject: Re: [iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook
> Message-ID: <54253089.2040501 at uti.at>
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> 
> Alternative to Facebook?
> 
> The important question is if Ello is a for-profit company or not and if 
> not, if it attempts to become one or not. The important point is how the 
> founders and those operating it relate to capitalism.
> 
> It says it does not commodify data for advertising purposes - good!
> 
> It however also says https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy:
> "We may share your personal information with third parties under several 
> circumstances, including [...] if we contract with a third party service 
> provider to offer services for you ? for example, with a credit card 
> processing company if you decide to buy something through Ello. Ello 
> does not have any affiliated companies right now. But if we do in the 
> future, we may share information with them, too."
> https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy
> 
> "offer services for you" can mean anything - the crucial thing is if 
> Ello or the service-provider make monetary profit by providing this 
> service or ever in the future intend to do so. This is not clarified.
> 
> Ello further says https://ello.co/wtf/post/about-ello:
> 
> "We occasionally offer special features to our users. If we create a 
> special feature that you really like, you may choose to support Ello by 
> paying a very small amount of money to add that feature to your Ello 
> account.
> You never have to pay anything, and you can keep using Ello forever, for 
> free. By choosing to buy a feature now and then for a very small amount 
> of money you support our work and help us make Ello better and better."
> 
> It is unclear here if Ello if these features are offered in order to get 
> donations that fund a non-profit organisation or if the intention is to 
> accumulate capital.
> 
> 
> Being ad-free is not enough - the point is that you have to be 
> non-capitalist in order to be an alternative to Facebook.
> 
> Ello says nowhere if it is a for-profit company, a hobby project of a 
> bunch of artists, a co-operative, or whatever. It seems to conceal its 
> legal status and that's a problem.
> 
> Ello says: "Ello is a Public Network" https://ello.co/wtf/post/privacy. 
> You are only truly public if you are public service or commonly owned.
> 
> It is unclear what Ello is - and that it is not communicating its legal 
> status and what its relationship to capitalism is, is troubling. A 
> privacy policy and terms of use that do not rule out that a platform is 
> or ever becomes capitalist are just as bad as Facebook's.
> 
> Best, Christian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> From: Steve Rhodes <srhodes at gmail.com>
> Cc: "idc at mailman.thing.net >> idc" <idc at mailman.thing.net>
> Subject: Re: [iDC] Ello--Alternative to Facebook
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> 
> Ello has taken $435,000 in VC funding so far
> 
> http://betabeat.com/2014/09/ello-founder-says-vc-funding-is-no-big-secret-thats-silly/
> 
> But the biggest problem is it seems pretty much a ghost town so far
> 
> Lots of people joining, but not many posting or commenting so far.
> 
> It is prettier than facebook, but while facebook has plenty of faults it
> also has features people use (and their friends using them):
> 
> There are a lot of progressives as uncritically excited by ello as
> techcrunch is by whatever the newest startup is.
> 
> I've seen too many new things come and go to not be skeptical.
> 
> A facebook alternative would be good, but even if ello or something else
> does well it progressives will still have to use Facebook if they want to
> actually reach people.
> 
> I'm actually more hopeful about the relaunch of http://upcoming.org by Andy
> Baio (who pointed out Elmo's VC funding) as open platform in addition to
> Facebook events.
> 
> He raised over $100,000 on kickstarter
> 
> http://mashable.com/2014/06/01/upcoming-org-founder-i-wont-sell-out-again/
> 
> Groups and individuals will still need to use Facebook events, but
> hopefully they will also post to upcoming.org as well as their own website
> (not everyone is on Facebook and even if you are it is easy to miss events
> if they aren't in your network)
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Steve Rhodes - photojournalist
> 
> http://www.corbisimages.com/photographer/steve-rhodes
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> http://www.demotix.com/users/steve-rhodes/profile
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