Ello

Social Networking service that launched in 2014, intends not to sell ads.

https://ello.co/

Mar'2014 - "will rely on donations"

• http://betabeat.com/2014/03/mysterious-new-social-network-ello-promises-you-are-not-the-product/
• http://www.dailydot.com/technology/ello-no-ads-social-web/
• Andy Baio calls bullshit on that. they took a $435,000 round of seed funding in January from Fresh Tracks Capital, a Vermont-based VC firm that announced the deal in March... 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.

Sept'2014: explosion in interest as LGBTQ get pushed off FaceBook for not using their "real" names.

• http://www.dailydot.com/technology/ello-facebook-real-names-policy/
• http://betabeat.com/2014/09/mysterious-social-network-ello-explodes-in-popularity-for-people-fleeing-facebook/

Sept'2014: design/biz-design thoughts

• Quinn Norton: [don't](https://ello.co/quinn/post/Ww6 F2_1w9G5uB9tTSdyQKQ) listen to the developers for now. The willful ignorance of developers to business models is what has lead to our surveilled, tracked, productized social lives.
  • Clay Shirky agrees. MeetUp decided, though, that only if the money came in from the people who valued the service could they keep designing the Meetup they wanted to design.
• Clay Shirky on where Ello fits on the Conversation/Annotation spectrum of Discussion Forum design.