I heard a discussion about that thing a couple of days ago in a local radio show here and they talked about how promising and cool that new social network is. They also basically said that everyone who thinks it wouldnt make it is stupid and doesnt know what he's saying.
I don't think they'll be making it. I can't count the projects anymore that tried to be a "better facebook" or "better whatsapp". The harsh truth ist: people simply don't care. The number of people caring enough about their privacy to move to another social network just because of that (that seems to be ellos single selling point) is very very small. It will only be a couple of hipsters showing off how cool and different they are. In a couple of weeks, nobody will talk about ello anymore.
Its a bit sad but thats how it is. Just look at all the other approaches that have failed already. Even app.net that had a lot of media coverage failed in the end because people just don't care. Even the oh-my-god-we-are-so-awesome-and-invite-only trick won't do it for them if they don't satisfy a very strong need for the users - and they don't; because there is none.
The other Whatsapp, Telegram, is doing pretty well it seems in my environment with most contact immediately enabling end-to-end encryption. Maybe I'm in a privacy-aware bubble. True, there as also that other twitter people were enthusiastic about (even though it didn't do anything different from status.net). Diaspora didn't really become popular as well.
I almost did this to my friend group (who use iMessage and WhattsApp exclusively)
Maybe I'm making perfect the enemy of good, but I won't be 'pushing' my friends to move to anything other than textsecure. Unfortunately the iPhone version is a long time coming (and necessary for a switch in my friend group), and I'm becoming doubtful that it will ever arrive.
I don't want to force my friend group to switch only to have to learn the lesson all over again. I prefer an open-source, end-to-end solution with a lot of eyes on it.
Im my group of friends I am that guy who likes shiny new things and nothing has beaten mail/sms/phone (and facebook messages for vague acquaintances as a last resort) yet.
I have to agree. The social network business is quite harsh. The new networks that have emerged in the post facebook era do not really offer something in addition to what facebook does. They just recycle some of the "features" of Facebook in its early stages. So...Ello is ads free. Who will pay for it? Donations? That could work. Is that a stable income when it comes to scaling out (should it become successful)? I honestly doubt it.
I hear this all the time, and though it may be true that "young people aren't into Facebook anymore," I think it misses the point.
When Facebook became available to high school students in 2005, teens flocked to it because it was a novelty, it was one of the few games in town, and it was, for many, a superior alternative to MySpace, which, for most, had become a garish nightmare of animated GIFs and auto-playing music widgets.
Today, there are so many options available that teens have little reason to use Facebook. They aren't as concerned with maintaining old friendships as adults or twenty-somethings because, well, they don't have many old friendships. They see, on a daily basis, almost everyone they know and have ever known, and for those they don't see, Snapchat serves just fine. For now.
As people get older, staying in touch and recording memories feels increasingly important. Facebook, a sort of nostalgia machine, is much better at capturing that kind of coherent narrative than, say, Instagram, and so people naturally migrate there as they leave college and lose touch.
I'd love to see a study that tracks social network usage from age 12 to age 25. My bet, which is obviously informed by a the kind of anecdotes you're gesturing to above, is that you'd see higher usage of "ephemeral"-type social networks in the early years (because young kids can't see past their noses and have relatively few memories) that tracks inversely with usage of networks whose content has longer-term value as time passes.
I have a 14 year old and their habits are interesting. They don't use FB. They hate how FB messes with a timeline. They were big Instagram users but dumped it pretty hard and are all in on SnapChat. Instagram is only for very deliberate "statement" photos (dressed up for school dance etc) They don't need multitask SN's like FB. They use single task apps and switch all the time between them without blinking. And they have no loyalty. They'd drop SnapChat in a second I suspect if the 3 coolest kids started using something else.
> On the other hand, young people (below 18) aren't that much into facebook anymore.
I agree, but think this misses the point. I'm not "that much into" voice telephone calls, but I still rely on them and wouldn't purchase a cell phone that couldn't make them. I'm also not willing to switch to a different method of making voice calls, even if it has substantial improvements, if I have to get all my friends and family to also switch to be able to use the service.
>> "On the other hand, young people (below 18) aren't that much into facebook anymore."
I'm not sure how true that is although I hear it all the time. I think young people are using more social networks (Snapchat, WhatsApp) but that doesn't mean they've stopped using Facebook. My younger brother and his friends spend most of their time on their phone on Facebook.
I don't think they'll be making it. I can't count the projects anymore that tried to be a "better facebook" or "better whatsapp". The harsh truth ist: people simply don't care. The number of people caring enough about their privacy to move to another social network just because of that (that seems to be ellos single selling point) is very very small. It will only be a couple of hipsters showing off how cool and different they are. In a couple of weeks, nobody will talk about ello anymore.
Its a bit sad but thats how it is. Just look at all the other approaches that have failed already. Even app.net that had a lot of media coverage failed in the end because people just don't care. Even the oh-my-god-we-are-so-awesome-and-invite-only trick won't do it for them if they don't satisfy a very strong need for the users - and they don't; because there is none.