New website Ello (www.ello.co) is already making waves a year into its creation as what some people are calling the "anti-Facebook."
The Burlington, Vermont-based "private" social network was launched on Aug. 7, and has gained attention because of the lack of information it provides compared to Facebook and other social networks, according to ABC News. The only way for people to join the website is if they get an invitation, which they can request or get through someone they already know who's a member.
Those who receive an invite and access the website will see an interface that only asks them to enter their email address. There is a text in the interface that says "Simple, beautiful & ad-free."
Reports already claim that Ello is receiving up to 35,000 requests every hour. The company said it doesn't sell ads or data about its users or third parties. Ello views collecting and selling personal data and mapping social connections for profit as "both creepy and unethical," Discovery News reported.
Ello says in its "manifesto" that while social networks seem "free," unwelcome advertising and a lack of privacy are the real price.
"We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment," the company wrote. "Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate- but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life. You are not a product."
The launch of this new social network comes as Facebook faces complaints from the gay community about disabling accounts that have stage names instead of real names, Discovery News reported. Another benefit of Ello is that users don't have to provide their real names, which is the subject of a protest in San Francisco against Facebook by "drag queens" who lost their accounts on the website.
While the service is currently free, Ello believes it will eventually have to accept money while keeping its site free of advertising, according to ABC News.
The Ello team, led by creator Paul Budnitz, looks to accomplish this with special features that users can add to their accounts and pay a small fee for if they like them.
Budnitz believes his team won't have a problem keeping Ello afloat because of how the website is handled compared to Facebook, Business Insider reported.
"There are seven of us running Ello now, with some extra programmers helping us out," he said. "It is not very hard to run at this scale, and Ello's getting pretty big. And data is really cheap! I think if you don't have to have an office building full of people figuring out how to manipulate people into giving you more data, it's really not that hard to run a network with a ton of people on it."
