Hello, Ello. Still no ads and no features to sell. What do? Bag $5.5m

Hipster-chic anti-Facebook wannabe Ello is today $5.5m richer, apparently – and hopes to silence critics of its no-ads manifesto with a renewed vow to never sell adverts nor user data. The social network upstart has declared itself a public benefit corporation with a statement never to plonk ads on its site or flog private …

[Anonymous Coward]

"On an ad-driven social network, the advertiser is the customer and you’re the product that’s bought and sold."

I hate the way people say that. Advertising is just a method of monetisation - a way of extracting money out of those who don't want to pay (but they end up paying anyway by buying the advertised products).

[Anonymous Coward]

"...a way of extracting money out of those who don't want to pay..."

Ahh, that "extracting" was spoken with all the sense of righteous entitlement that comes with a vested interest. "You are the product" is entirely accurate even if you don't like the semantics; unfortunately for you that rosy view of a win-win approach is rapidly headed to where it belongs, down the crapper.

[Old Handle]

It's not that having ads is so terrible. I don't feel like a product when I visit The Register, for instance. The key words are "ad-driven". There's a difference between making a great site and displaying ads, and making a great site for displaying ads.

[dan1980]

No.

In TV, the advertisers are the customers and the people at home watching are the audience. What is being sold to the customers is the attention of the audience.

You are the product.

It costs to have a product to sell and, in Facebook's world, as in Google's they pay their product in the services they offer and it costs them in servers and running costs and salaries to make and support it all.

Just like when selling a chocolate bar at a corner store, the idea is to sell it for more than it costs you to obtain the product, stock, store and sell it.

Just accept that this is the way it works - your attention and your information are the products and they buy them from you buy providing you with services to use and then sell those products to their customers, the advertisers.

[ecofeco]

Yep, who you know

Proving yet again it's not what you know, but who you know.

[Dazzz]

They need to boost the servers...

I was trying to use it late this evening and it was mainly not working, which doesnt inspire confidence...

[skuba*steve]

Still waiting....

For my application to be approved, but I'm really keen to get in and have a look at this. I spend less and less time on Facebook as I find it really doesn't deliver what I want (what my friends and family are up to now) and more and more of what it thinks I want (promoted links and what my family and friends were doing yesterday).

[razorfishsl]

It is bolox…

All it will require is a buy out, since they have not specifically written this in their T&C

So a quick buyout and all that highly valuable data will be slurped.