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posted by martyb on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-say-goodbye-and-I-say-ello dept.

As a longtime (very longtime) Facebook Objector, I've been interested on occasion by things like diaspora (though not interested enough to start actually playing around with it). I basically decided I wasn't going to be a part of the whole social media thing, but, if there was a site that was respectful of privacy and not the whole drama house that FB is (even I, a person with no FB connection, have to listen to people whine about being defriended — I just tell them my apathy is virtually limitless which usually gets me out of that conversation).

Anyway, Cnet is reporting on Ello, which is invite-only right now, and is saying all of the right things about privacy and being ad free. I'm of course very skeptical, but their manifesto reads real nice: "You are not a product" but at the same time, doesn't exactly say they won't be monetizing their users.

I'd be interested in the take people here may have. And if anyone has invites — I'd like one so I could poke around at it.

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  • (Score: 2) by mtrycz on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:09PM

    by mtrycz (60) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:09PM (#99264)

    If I agree to the Manifesto, it lets me share it on social media I don't use.
    How neet is that!

    --
    In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:47PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:47PM (#99378)

      Blatantly posting on an early comment so it's seen. TFS referred to invitations, and I have a few. Post an email address below and I'll send them.

      • (Score: 1) by gcrumb on Monday September 29 2014, @01:27AM

        by gcrumb (3946) on Monday September 29 2014, @01:27AM (#99416) Homepage

        ${username}@gmail.com

        Pretty please. Interested in testing in the developing world.

        --
        Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bunfight
      • (Score: 1) by Jtmach on Monday September 29 2014, @03:58PM

        by Jtmach (1481) on Monday September 29 2014, @03:58PM (#99644)

        I'll take one if you have some to spare please.
        Public@Machovsky.com

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:15PM (#99268)

    The rats are already abandoning ship and it just set sail.

    https://aralbalkan.com/notes/ello-goodbye/ [aralbalkan.com]

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:23PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:23PM (#99274) Journal

      That's a very convincing argument against joining.

      1. Ello took VC money.
      2. They wouldn't get VC money without an exit strategy.
      3. An exit strategy is the means by which whatever company purchases Ello in the future would profit from its users.
      4. It is better to discourage this kind of thing, especially with site touting its respect for privacy (but keeping silent on the VC connection).
      5. It is better to not join so it can whither on the vine and discourage similar VC funding.

      • (Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:32PM

        by Darth Turbogeek (1073) on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:32PM (#99389)

        It's "social" media, that's the best argument for not joining.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Reziac on Monday September 29 2014, @03:52AM

          by Reziac (2489) on Monday September 29 2014, @03:52AM (#99451) Homepage

          Myself, I'm looking to join the antisocial media...

          --
          And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
          • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday September 29 2014, @01:40PM

            by Alfred (4006) on Monday September 29 2014, @01:40PM (#99567) Journal

            I have a system for that. I have an old computer that I don't turn on very often that has a .txt file full of my postings. If anyone wants to throw some venture capital my way I could upgrade to .rtf.

            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday September 29 2014, @01:49PM

              by Reziac (2489) on Monday September 29 2014, @01:49PM (#99574) Homepage

              Upstart... 1's and 0's oughta be social enough for anyone.

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
        • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:09PM

          by cykros (989) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:09PM (#100628)

          I still don't see why people can't just use Finger for a profile, RSS for their "newsfeed", an open source calendar solution for shared events, XMPP for instant messaging/chat/video conferencing (with ZTRP), and e-mail for, well, e-mail.

          All of these platforms seem to have the singular goal of de-modularizing the way people use the Internet. I'd call it an attack.

          • (Score: 2) by bugamn on Monday October 06 2014, @03:59PM

            by bugamn (1017) on Monday October 06 2014, @03:59PM (#102480)

            Because the common user doesn't recognize any of those names and would be much less able to setup them. And who would be interested in making some easy way to setup those?

            • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday October 08 2014, @02:43AM

              by cykros (989) on Wednesday October 08 2014, @02:43AM (#103420)

              I guess I'm not too concerned about the common user. They used to have AOL as their little oasis in the Internet, and now they have Facebook, keeping them safely corralled in and kept as livestock. No, it's when I see nerds jumping to using Facebook for all of their communications, eschewing (federated) XMPP and other open standards that I start getting a bit annoyed. We do the people of the world a disservice when we allow the lowest common denominator to define the way we all use technology, especially when it comes at the expense of personal privacy and security, all for however modest the gains for improved usability we get (was AOL Instant Messenger all that hard to set up? Because it's essentially exactly the same to set up an XMPP account).

              "User Friendly" is the mantra of the destroyers of great technology, and has been for some time. It's what brought systemd to desktop Linux, the Modern UI to Windows 8, and the walled garden application market places for a variety of systems (after all, a user might accidentally download something they shouldn't; best to only give them access to approved software). While usability isn't something we can entirely ignore, it really needs to have its teeth knocked out a bit. Especially in the cases where it's a matter of feigned user friendliness, masking confusing privacy settings, inability to manage past postings effectively, and generally turning the user into an automaton, there to fill out fields on a form. That we have a network spanning the globe of most information humanity collectively has access to, and one of the first things people think of when it is mentioned is "that site where all the petty drama happens and the big pimp that runs it sells pageviews to advertisers based on personal data" is a bit on the depressing side, to say the least. Encouraging this state of affairs really isn't on my agenda.

              • (Score: 2) by bugamn on Wednesday October 08 2014, @03:04AM

                by bugamn (1017) on Wednesday October 08 2014, @03:04AM (#103429)

                I am concerned about the common user because most of my friends are common users. What use is XMPP if I know no one else that would use it to communicate with me?

                • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday October 08 2014, @07:20PM

                  by cykros (989) on Wednesday October 08 2014, @07:20PM (#103729)

                  Each one teach one.

                  The biggest barrier to decent adoption rates of better software rarely boils down to things actually being hard, and more to them being perceived as hard, particularly when terminology is used that is outside of the average person's vocabulary. The hardest thing about XMPP is getting people not to be afraid of the name (did we HAVE to stop calling it Jabber??). It helps to remind people that A) they're ALREADY using it if they're using Facebook in the first place, and B) that they can integrate their facebook messaging into client software with added functionality (such as painless OTR encryption, easy logging, etc) right along with their federated XMPP access, either using dual accounts on the client, or just setting up an XMPP transport so it all goes through a single login (this works for legacy IM systems too, though transports do depend on the server being used supporting them).

                  Frankly, I'm still a little irked by Google killing federated XMPP when they moved to hangouts, though I'm not actually sure quite how dead it is over there, as I have occasionally noticed old Google contacts pop up on my roster. That used to be the surefire way to talk to average folks, as, well, who doesn't already have a Google account (except for people who likely already have an XMPP account elsewhere anyway)?

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Appalbarry on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:16PM

    by Appalbarry (66) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:16PM (#99269) Journal

    saying all of the right things about privacy and being ad free

    Admittedly I haven't had the time or inclination to look further, but when I see a claim like that I always default to asking: how do they make their money?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:29PM (#99277)

      A better question would be "How will they pay the bills?" because there's always the freak one-in-an-octillion chance that its not something meant to be monetized and used for profit, but even in those non-existent situations they still need a way to pay the bills to keep the place running.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:31PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:31PM (#99278) Journal

      I tend to ask myself, "what is the motivation?"

      For commercial sites, that boils down to money. But there are projects that are not so much motivated by money, but by other things Stallman might give speeches about. I didn't see anything Stallmanesque about Ello -- rather, it seemed very slick and the manifesto carefully crafted to give the impression of a respect for privacy, without actually promising that, which made me hopeful but suspicious simultaneously.

      Anyway, based on the AC's link above to the article about Ello taking VC money, not disclosing, and the certainty this means future monetization ( https://aralbalkan.com/notes/ello-goodbye/ [aralbalkan.com] ), suspicion has won and I've lost interest in even poking around at it. Whatever -- I've lived fine without such a thing for many years.

      • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:21PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:21PM (#99368)

        I see not being Stallmanesque as a positive thing. Give me something that is motivated by usefulness and quality, not politics. And for a social network give me something that's going to appeal to the majority, not just a few. A social network is useless if your non-technical and non-ideological friends and family don't join it.

        Disapora was the Stallmanesque social network. It was stillborn.

        --
        Hurrah! Quoting works now!
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:17AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:17AM (#99410)

          > Give me something that is motivated by usefulness and quality, not politics.

          Give me something that is motivated by usefulness and quality, not greed.

          Is one really so different from the other? Is greed in the form of harvesting profits from the value of others not inherently political?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:19AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @01:19AM (#99413)

          > Disapora was the Stallmanesque social network. It was stillborn.

          Selection bias. There have been hundreds of other social networks that weren't "stallmanesque" that have also died on the vine. That the one sort-of decentralized social network that got some press was a dud doesn't really say anything about anything other than social networks fail all the time.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @04:58PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @04:58PM (#99675)

            is actually more of the stallmanesque social network. It's licensed AGPL, which makes it even more user-friendly than GPL'd code (since anybody running it on their site has to provide their changes to anyone accessing their service.), and it can link together with other friendica sites, including data porting, thus ensuring a user can't be locked in to a particular service.

            Mind you after having google and some friendica sites begin spidering my users profiles, despite having disabled interserver registration and continuing to do so even after the removal of the directory from the web server, and a robots.txt file disallowing access explicitly and implicitly to the user's paths I decided against any further future use of it.

            • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:23PM

              by cykros (989) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:23PM (#100636)

              Google is pretty notorious for bad behavior with robots.txt. Seems like it might be a reasonable place to apply the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (as their crawling essentially amounts to unauthorized access...and the crawler itself is as least as much of a "hacker tool" as wget [arstechnica.com]).

          • (Score: 2) by cykros on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:20PM

            by cykros (989) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @08:20PM (#100634)

            Diaspora* died on the vine when one of it's main developers committed suicide a few years ago. While the network is still up, and does still get used, the fact that new features kind of stopped coming left it about as feature-full as social networking sites of the early noughties. Or perhaps more accurately, it's like twitter without the 140 character limit and with a few more options for media postings.

            It'd be nice to see someone pick it up and run with it, but honestly, at this point, most people who take the time to take issue with Facebook are about ready to write off social networks in general, having remembered that the Internet itself, with all its protocols, amounts to a far better social network than any one site or service can offer anyway.

            I think the most interesting thing I'd like to see would be a little updating to the Finger protocol, as well as perhaps a good way of searching across the diverse Finger servers for easy lookup. As for privacy, as usual, the answer is "don't post anything you wouldn't want on the cover of the New York Times". That kind of stuff goes at best into encrypted emails, or encrypted files otherwise shared. I certainly trust AES256 more with private information than I trust a company whose bread and butter is my information, even if they're not explicitly selling it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @07:45AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @07:45AM (#99496)

          I see not being Stallmanesque as a positive thing.

          That makes you an evil slave trader or a stupid slave.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:47PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:47PM (#99287)

      Of course they're saying all the right things, but Google's motto used to be "Don't be evil", which promptly got thrown out the window the moment the investors took over and the real motto became "Make me richer".

      The only things that commercially-run social networks can ever offer to investors as potential revenue streams are:
      - Eyeballs to show ads to.
      - Data on users and their activities.
      - Extra services to users.

      That means that despite all their lip service, Ello is guaranteed to do exactly what Facebook is doing the moment that the founders cash out, because the founders aren't actually in control of the company's actions, the investors are, and to investors the bottom line is the bottom line.

      Facebook is precisely the proof of that: When they started, they were saying the same sorts of things that Ello is saying now.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:23PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:23PM (#99369)

        The only things that commercially-run social networks can ever offer to investors as potential revenue streams are:
        - Eyeballs to show ads to.
        - Data on users and their activities.
        - Extra services to users.

        There's no mystery. Ello has already said their model is #3 on your list.

        --
        Hurrah! Quoting works now!
        • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:50PM

          by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @02:50PM (#100480)

          There's no mystery. Ello has already said their model is #3 on your list.

          Which is fine until somebody says "Hey, we could make more money from that user data!" and "Hey, we could make more money if we showed ads!". Remember, the founders, however idealistic, will eventually either cash out or die, and that means that control will pass to people who are looking at quarterly earnings above all else.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @08:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @08:52AM (#99509)

        I see no problem in extra services to users, as long as they are opt-in (which they have to be if they are paid for).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:11PM (#99365)

      saying all of the right things about privacy and being ad free

      Admittedly I haven't had the time or inclination to look further, but when I see a claim like that I always default to asking: how do they make their money?

      Another even more important question: what's in it for me? Seriously, I am literally shocked that no one else has apparently bothered to ask this question. I didn't bother to read TFA but I gather that you post your personal, professional, and contact info on their site...for what exactly? To do some networking? Is that the idea? Does it actually work? Is there a better way? And is it worth the cost to you? From my point of view, there is very little--and often intangible--benefit to those who join but very real costs and risks associated with it. Has anyone ever gotten a serious job offer through their contacts on FB, LinkedIn, etc.?...[crickets]...Anyone?

      • (Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:34PM

        by BasilBrush (3994) on Sunday September 28 2014, @10:34PM (#99373)

        Has anyone ever gotten a serious job offer through their contacts on FB, LinkedIn, etc.?...[crickets]...Anyone?

        I get most of my jobs through the network I maintain on FB. These are not people I met on FB, but people with who I maintain an ongoing contact with through that site. Personally I've never found LinkedIn or Twitter useful. But I know other people have.

        But others are there for pleasure. Not everything is about work.

        --
        Hurrah! Quoting works now!
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by cafebabe on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:25PM

    by cafebabe (894) on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:25PM (#99275) Journal

    The founders don't need to find a method of making their social network economically viable. They only have to continue until they have an exit. For approximately 3/4 of ventures, the exit is an acquisition. The most likely acquisition is Facebook. Alternatively, the exit may be liquidation. In which case, all promises about privacy are void.

    In the social media sector, promises about privacy may last the duration of the venture trading as an independent entity. However, the whole sector is tainted. So, you shouldn't share anything that you wouldn't be willing to share with Mark Zuckerberg or a liquidator who is legally obliged to obtain the maximum value for the venture's assets.

    --
    1702845791×2
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:32PM (#99279)

    Wow. Then at the bottom of the page, there's a prominent button 'Request an invitation'. Gee, sounds exclusive!

    Reminds me of an unbelievably snotty letter I got many years ago inviting me to subscribe to The Economist magazine. Apparently I was chosen because of my stature within the community, etc., not because I happened to have $40 or so laying about. Then at the bottom came the crusher:

    "Incidentally, should you decide not to follow up on this opportunity, I would ask that you do NOT pass this invitation on to anyone else. I would prefer that you just discard it.

    Thank you."

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:47PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:47PM (#99285)

      I think I may have seen that biz model before, AC.

      Dear Anonymous Coward,

      Good News! I have an exclusive private offer for you, carefully limited to the 100,000 most influential users on Soylent News. For only $50 you can get a a leather bound directory "whos who on Soylent News". Just give me all your personally identifiable information, moms maiden name, SS number, and a photo of yourself (no goatse please) and send your $50 in bitcoins to the following address:

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:57PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:57PM (#99292)

        Thanks VLM, I'll think about your offer.

        I've been crafting a work of poetry that I'm hopeful will be accepted in the 2014 Glengarry Glen Ross Poetry Festival. There's a panel of judges but if mine is accepted, then for $1800 in expenses my work will be included in the festival proceedings and I'll be a published poet!

        Dark were your eyes, and dark was your heart that last night....

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:18PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:18PM (#99307) Journal

      Last week before I posted here, I clicked that "request an invitation" button. I got back an email saying that they had no invitations available. So it is sort of a useless button, except for Ello to collect email addresses. All that is moot though, I've lost interest already.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by N3Roaster on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:58PM

        by N3Roaster (3860) <roaster@wilsonscoffee.com> on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:58PM (#99343) Homepage Journal

        This is one of the things that I think really nipped Google+ in the bud. Before they were falling over themselves trying to trick anybody to please join they kept it small while simultaneously trying to build hype. In the words of someone I knew on other social sites, there was no "there" there. When you turn away the people who want to use your service, they lose interest and move on.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:45PM (#99284)

    "I am vocally against social media, and hence have no idea about social media standards. Despite claiming that I'm interested in the media itself and my dislike stems from privacy concerns, I haven't bothered to look at the available secure and open source alternatives. I am also known to be an ass when people express socially regarding said social media. Please be my friend if you are a member of this exclusive internet club."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:56PM (#99291)

      Plenty of folks are dubious, but Ello responded to the skepticism by asserting its plans to find other streams of income. In a post, its founders stated plans to offer paid feature upgrades, which could be things like data exporting or profile enhancements.

    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:16PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:16PM (#99304) Journal

      You misunderstand, I'm against social media sites as presently constituted. I have looked at open source alternatives in the past, diaspora in particular, but it was my understanding that development had basically stopped at some point in time. It appears that may be incorrect ( https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/ [diasporafoundation.org] ). A bigger issue with diaspora is that you either have to find a pod (can you trust the pod owner?) or set up your own pod on your own server. Being not really willing to trust a pod, and not quite interested enough to go through the expense and hassle of running my own server (*), I do nothing. What I would like to see is something, maybe hosted in Iceland, that is respectful of privacy and that I don't have to set up and maintain. As for being an ass, I'm an ass and don't really care.

      (*) yes I have old computers laying around, but they are power hogs. I'd probably want to set it up on an ARM based system which I'd have to buy, configure, and keep up to date on security fixes. This is where my interest level turns out to be less than the expense and hassle.

      • (Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:26PM

        by tftp (806) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:26PM (#99310) Homepage

        I'm against social media sites as presently constituted.

        Perhaps that's a good position to maintain. Why then you are looking at various honeypots like this Ello thing? Is it that you only want to click on controls and see what happens? I am not sure what your reasons are. If all you want to do is to play with a social network then yes, you can run your own pod in Diaspora, and invite two or three friends to join, just for testing. (You will be done with that in a few hours.)

        • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:18PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:18PM (#99351) Journal

          Because I was intrigued by their promises initially. I mean, it _looks_ good, but while being pretty and flashy, they left out much of the stuff that would make me feel good enough to actually use it for real. Even so, I was initially at least interested enough to try playing around with it, maybe watching wireshark while using it. But after reading some of the info posted here, my interest has evaporated. As for Diaspora -- I guess it comes down to this: I don't have enough interest in social media to set up my own pod.

          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:40PM

            by tftp (806) on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:40PM (#99357) Homepage

            I mean, it _looks_ good, but while being pretty and flashy, they left out much of the stuff that would make me feel good enough to actually use it for real.

            All successful (or at least viable) social networks have to be pretty and flashy, as 99% of the society is attracted to shiny things. The same 99% are happy to pay for this service with their data. It doesn't even have to be true ID; there are plenty of ways to associate a login with another login, and another login... as most people do not bother to have a unique username for each Web site that they play with. Hell, it's a challenge to convince them to use different passwords :-)

            As resut you, an adult, are given a sandbox where a bunch of kids are playing. You can join in... but pretty soon you realize that all those games are repetitive, boring, and in the end pointless. The children don't see it that way, but you do. You have work to do, life to live, things to build.

            Social networks and privacy are not just incompatible; they are opposite. The whole purpose of a social network is to tell the world (or at least two recipients, one of them being the server) about something in your life. The whole purpose of privacy is to keep this information to yourself, or to tell some of it to some carefully selected, trusted real people who are NOT servers.

            This, actually, explains the state of Diaspora - people who are smart enough to run it have no burning desire to do so. Your reply confirms that :-)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:27PM (#99311)

        > What I would like to see is something, maybe hosted in Iceland, that is respectful of privacy and that I don't have to set up and maintain.

        Iceland won't help. The problem is the servers, not the jurisdiction. The only way forward is a decentralized system where the client is the server. That installing the app on your phone or PC or whatever makes it into a full-fledged server too. Because social networking is inherently about clusters of users, everyone in your social group can mirror data from each other so that when your phone is away from wifi, requests can still be fulfilled by your friends' phones who are still on wifi.

        The way to make money from such a system is to sell heavy-duty server instances to celebrities and other commercial users who need guarantees for responsiveness, bandwidth and availability.

        • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:21PM

          by hemocyanin (186) on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:21PM (#99353) Journal

          I would be OK with a P2P system where it was clear that you shared everything with everyone, but it seems there would be real problems with having information meant to be kept private from some and open to others, on a random swath of other people's computers (because implementing a crypto system is very hard to do right) .

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:40PM (#99359)

            > (because implementing a crypto system is very hard to do right) .

            Yes it is. But you don't have to get the crypto perfect for v1.0 of the protocol. The vast majority of social networking has only the most minimum requirements for confidentiality. I'm not saying bolt security on afterwards, I'm saying iterate best efforts.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:58PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 28 2014, @06:58PM (#99293)

    WRT "and is saying all of the right things" what about the things they aren't saying?

    Their privacy policy talks about not selling personal information. What about aggregate statistics? A big ole A/B web page testing farm?

    It also mentions sharing your personal info with a payment processor if you buy something thru them, which makes sense for a financial transaction. Maybe they wanna be the social network for buying hipster fashion junk. I could see it.

    Another thing they don't talk about is non-advertising business services they could none the less sell because they're not advertising. If you cross your eyes just right, astroturfing isn't advertising.

    I find the extortion idea to be hilarious. If they became a financial threat to facebook, then the best use of stockholder money for FB would be to buy them and shut them down.

    Something not to be ignored is we're right about at the peak just before the burst of another bubble, and all long term estimates show a nice deep recession coming up, and at the standard at the peak of the bubble is to put up idiotic business plans. "Well, we have the domain name drkoop.com and thats our only plan, where's my million dollar buyout" "Dog food delivery over the internet" and all the memes like 1. something 2. ... 3. we are rich!. "Sure we lose money on every transaction, but we'll make it up on volume". This isn't just April of 2001 its also summer of 2014.

    • (Score: 2) by tynin on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:07PM

      by tynin (2013) on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:07PM (#99325) Journal

      We are in the fall now. But yes, point taken.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday September 29 2014, @07:46AM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday September 29 2014, @07:46AM (#99497) Homepage
      Absolutely. At no point in their manifesto do they promise that they won't just repeat the pattern of "Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold." Not showing you ads, which they do claim, is different from not selling data to advertisers so that they can target your ads more cynically *elsewhere*. In fact, in the very next line they say that their twist is to be *adacious*. What's more audacious than claiming to be different from all those other jerks, whilst behind the scenes being actually just the same.

      Bait and switch. Just wait for Ello Beta...
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by drgibbon on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:02PM

    by drgibbon (74) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:02PM (#99296) Journal

    That manifesto means nothing if it's not backed up with action, transparency, and workable solutions to the problems that they're claiming to fix. "You are not a product" doesn't seem to match up too well with the Aral Balkan post [aralbalkan.com] that has been linked in the comments here. I'd be highly suspicious of this Ello thing right from the word go, so the Balkan post is not exactly surprising. Marketers are simply witnessing the growing perception of Facebook's privacy problem and spewing out words, pictures, and products to try and grab a slice of Facebook. I see nothing in the Ello architecture or setup that promises anything different to Facebook. It amounts to "we're different, trust us". No thanks.

    --
    Certified Soylent Fresh!
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:18PM (#99305)

    The one feature that matters for any new form of social media is decentralization. As long as social media is centralized the urge to harvest data from users will be too great to resist for very long. Ello is centralized ergo Ello is obsolete before it even gets off the ground. The only reason everyone is talking about Ello is because their PR firm has paid for enough press hits. They offer nothing new.

  • (Score: 1) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:22PM

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:22PM (#99308)

    Google's manifesto is "Don't be evil". So you'll excuse me if I don't take Ello's words too seriously.

    Not to mention, I prefer real-world socializing to fake internet friends.

    • (Score: 2) by oodaloop on Monday September 29 2014, @12:09PM

      by oodaloop (1982) <reversethis-{moc.ohoz} {ta} {ffonimakj}> on Monday September 29 2014, @12:09PM (#99543)

      Me too. I love flying all over the world each and every day to keep up with friends and family everywhere. Sure, it's impractical and expensive, but at least I'm not on a computer for a few minutes.

      --
      Many Bothans died to bring you this comment.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:37PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Sunday September 28 2014, @07:37PM (#99315)

    A web site gets hype by being cloaked in mystery and being invite-only, using the language of the moment that pushes people's buttons to get publicity? This absolutely has to be 100% legit.

    I think the last time that happened, a big wooden horse was outside a city. It was invite-only, and wasn't a product.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:46PM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday September 28 2014, @08:46PM (#99336) Journal

      Are you saying "Beware of Web Marketeers bearing invites?"

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:05PM (#99347)

        Beware of Marketers.

  • (Score: 2) by Lemming on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:34PM

    by Lemming (1053) on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:34PM (#99355)

    This article makes a good case why you shouldn't join proprietary, centralized, closed source networks like this: No, I am not interested in joining your proprietary social network [ath0.com].

    Join the decentralized diaspora* [diasporafoundation.org] instead, it's no longer in the news, but it keeps evolving and growing.

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:46PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Sunday September 28 2014, @09:46PM (#99360) Homepage

    Since no one seems to be interested in seeing where Ello does plan on getting its money from, here's some actual information:

    Support Ello
    Ello is completely free to use.

    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.

    So yes, you are NOT the product. At least, that's the plan at this point.

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by n1 on Monday September 29 2014, @12:02AM

      by n1 (993) on Monday September 29 2014, @12:02AM (#99398) Journal

      So their plan is to be "completely free to use" except for the features you have to pay for?

      Can't quite make those two statements add up, also doesn't sound like a good/sustainable business model especially when using the words "very small", so are they talking 10c or $5 - does this "very small" payment give users the feature for 'life', or for a month?

      As another post has mentioned, this has VC funding behind it; there is going to be another angle or they wouldn't have got funding to enter an already crowded market; offering nothing new except expecting some degree of payment on their 'free to use' service. The only way to find out is probably to approach them as another VC interested in investing, then you might get some more detail on how they're planning to monetize or get to acquisition territory.

    • (Score: 2) by mth on Monday September 29 2014, @02:44AM

      by mth (2848) on Monday September 29 2014, @02:44AM (#99438) Homepage

      So yes, you are NOT the product. At least, that's the plan at this point.

      The problem is that while the current plan sounds nice, there is nothing in there that guarantees that the plan won't change. There is no legal binding that prevents them from changing their policies. Nor is there a technological reason they can't do so: this is still a centralized network; leaving the site means leaving the network.

      And since they have taken venture capital, the plan will change if they don't make enough money. Venture capitalists don't want a company that breaks even; they make risky investments in the hope a few of them will pay off big.

  • (Score: 2) by zeigerpuppy on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:53PM

    by zeigerpuppy (1298) on Sunday September 28 2014, @11:53PM (#99394)

    The authors of ello have said that they will charge for features in the future. This includes security "features".
    In other words you'll need to pay to stay private.
    Ello isn't federated, so you can't run your own node on your own terms.
    I also have been waiting for a social network that respects privacy, but it will need to be self hosted for that to be the case. Diaspora did have this aim but last time I tried it, it was a mess to install. Maybe it's better now. Pump.io is also worth checking out.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @02:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @02:22AM (#99433)

      The authors of ello have said that they will charge for features in the future. This includes security "features".
      In other words you'll need to pay to stay private.

      "Pay up, or we release your private info to the world"? How nice. I suppose it's a step up from the mafia syndicates that would break your kneecaps if you were late on paying protection money. I think I'll pass.

  • (Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Monday September 29 2014, @12:23AM

    by mmcmonster (401) on Monday September 29 2014, @12:23AM (#99405)

    I kinda like Google+. I subscribe to a number of prominent websites and people their and follow them there. Their phone apps is a year ahead of Facebook and there's less adverts or invites to games and such.

    Really wish it was more popular. Not that it needs anything, just that I'm worried that Google will pull the plug soon if it isn't gathering more users.

    • (Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Monday September 29 2014, @09:38AM

      by zafiro17 (234) on Monday September 29 2014, @09:38AM (#99518) Homepage

      I'm on it too and basically like it, as it's useful for some cases. It's got lots of gorgeous photography posts floating around, and a lot of FOSS/Tech guys are using it, so it's been useful to follow some projects like FreeBSD and openSUSE and the like.

      I don't think it's that great for sharing pictures of the kids with grandma, but I do that differently, and it doesn't involve Facebook or any other public "service" offered by some corporation.

      G+ isn't that bad; in fact, it's good for what it is.

      --
      Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday September 29 2014, @06:59PM

    by Gaaark (41) on Monday September 29 2014, @06:59PM (#99727) Journal

    from their WTF section, lol

    https://ello.co/wtf [ello.co]

    How does Ello support itself?
    Ello is free.

    We occasionally offer special features to our community of users. You can choose to support Ello by paying a very small amount of money to add that feature to your Ello account.

    You're never obligated to pay anything, but by choosing to buy a feature for a very small amount of money now and then you support our work, and help us make Ello better and better.

    --
    --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:56PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @12:56PM (#100431) Journal

      All of those sentences are true of Facebook:

      Facebook is free.

      Facebook occasionally offers special features to their community of users. They can choose to support Facebook by paying a very small amount of money to add that feature to their Facebook account. [things like making payments in games, the gifts system, etc]

      They're never obligated to pay anything, but by choosing to buy a feature for a very small amount of money now and then they support Facebook's work, and help make Facebook better and better.

      Soo...yeah, even based on their own PR crap they're no better than Facebook...

      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:14PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:14PM (#100521) Journal

        Huh!... i don't use Facepalm, so this is news to me.

        Guess it's not so innocent as it sounds, possibly.

        Shrugs.

        Another thing i probably won't register for.

        --
        --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:47PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday October 01 2014, @04:47PM (#100537) Journal

          Yeah I mean the point really is that this statement doesn't say anything that they WON'T do.

          Doesn't say they won't sell your info to advertisers. Doesn't say they won't sell the company to someone else who will. Doesn't say they won't upload their entire unmasked database to TPB. Or sell credit card numbers to the Mafia. Even if it did say that (I think other areas on the page do promise to not involve advertisers) as we all know they could change their mind as soon as the someone's actually offering them real money for it.

          It's in the "kids in a dorm room" phase. Same place Facebook and Google started. It can't stay there for long.

          The only way to can get any real guarantees from a social network is if it's open source or peer-to-peer. I haven't seen any open source centralized networks, but that would at least allow a fork. Most that have one have the other -- GNUSocial, Diaspora, etc. But even just meeting one of those conditions allows the users to regain control if things get bad. Ello doesn't. You're basically putting all your info at the mercy of a couple college kids.

          So for the time being, until I get some time to set up my own GNUSocial and Diaspora nodes to see how those work, I'm sticking with Facebook. Because it's bigger. It's more highly scrutinized. Any decision requires cooperation from many others. Zuckerberg himself can't just grab your data and do whatever he wants with it. Budnitz can. And of course I'm not giving them anything TOO sensitive, and of course all my friends are on Facebook already, so that's undeniably part of the motivation too. And it's not even that I don't trust the Ello folks really, I just feel like they don't have a *clue* what it's going to cost, in both money and time, to keep this thing running and growing. A couple people tossing in $5 here and there may pay for a $20 shared hosting instance, but there's a reason Facebook has entire datacenters all their own. That isn't cheap. I don't want to be the experiment in what Ello is going to do when they run out of cash and their site is crashing under the load...