Ello and Facebook: Leonidas and Xerxes

Just as King Leonidas of the Spartans prepared to shoot King Xerxes of the Persians in a last-ditch effort with his spear in 300, a fledgling venture capitalist and social network is poised to upset the emperor of social media, Facebook. Right now, it’s making waves on the Internet with its revolutionary promise. It accepts members on an invite-only basis. It promises no advertising and no information sold to marketers. Its name is Ello.

But first, what’s up with Facebook now? Two things: censorship and information trading. Recently, Facebook barred members of the LGBT community from refusing to use their “authentic names,” an act that led to a backlash from the whole world and the review of Facebook’s real-name policy. In other news, a few days ago, Facebook launched its cross-platform ad network, Atlas, a property it bought from Microsoft. Atlas aims to revolutionize digital advertising by turning away from using cookie tracking. A cookie is data exchanged between a website and your web browser that tracks your activity, such as which ads you click and which items you purchase from the site. In a nutshell, this information about you is what digital marketers are trading around and analyzing to show you ads that you might like.

Atlas is doing away with this method and introducing a more advanced approach in tracking consumers. It involves using the power of the Like button. Previously, cookies just tracked history, which may not indicative of what the user is actually interested in. But with this new audience-based tracking, it can tailor ads to your interests. More than that, if, for example, you don’t click on an ad on Facebook but you find the same ad on another website and on another device, Atlas will log that in as a click also for the ad placement on Facebook. Thus, marketers have a more distinct picture of that you are interested in, at least based on your virtual activities. Now, a lot of people unsurprisingly find this intrusive. Most people hate ads. The idea of a company tracking what they ‘like’ along with their browser history makes them positively livid. This may be beneficial on the business side of things, but not for the NSA-sensitive masses.

Now, Ello, a new social network, has been launched for users everywhere. The site is so exclusive that you have to go on a waiting list to sign up. The site’s founder, Paul Budnitz, is claiming that members are signing up at the hundreds of thousands every day. The project started as Budnitz’ desire to do away with the shackles of social media giants, Facebook and Twitter. When he saw other people wanting accounts, he got USD$435,000 in venture capital and relaunched the site into what it is today.

One quick peek at Ello is enough to tell you that the site is definitely in a beta phase. The website has no frills and no extras, just a social network where you can interact as yourself and not as a consumer. Its manifesto even declares that “you are not a product” (Fight Club vibes, anyone?). No advertising and no tracking. It shows only what you want to be shown. What could be better? Its interface is reminiscent of a professional portfolio and a Tumblr profile. It’s basic and minimalist, but that’s enough for the early adopters of this movement. It features the ability to put connections into classifications that they can’t see for themselves, a la Google Circles.

But it’s not a finished product. Like any beta product, they have to work on several features and bugs. Its URLs can be easily hijacked. A user even posed as the site’s feature list by naming his own profile “Feature List.” It makes money by charging for additional features like having multiple profiles in one link. It’s not the best compared to the big leagues. Ello has a mountain to climb if it hopes to topple Facebook from its throne. It wouldn’t be surprising if Ello falls flat in the future. But Facebook and all the other social networking giants would do well to monitor this first salvo against data tracking.

Like Leonidas, all Ello might accomplish is to gash the cheek of Facebook, but who will say that a gash isn’t enough? It will prove that Facebook is not immortal. Its users are becoming self-aware. This might even cascade into a worldwide trend. The idea of being free from information trading and marketing is a romantic dream. Even if Facebook buys out Ello and its users come lumbering back with their tails between their legs, the scar will remain and the people will remember how the aspiring Ello fought against the giant.