Why ‘Facebook-killer’ #Ello is not the Next Big Thing

A new “anti-Facebook” social networking site has been making waves lately with some tech pundits going as far as asserting that it is going to be the “Facebook killer”.

Billed, “the second coming of Facebook”, Ello.co pitches among its supposed key differentiating features its being ad-free and a network that allows its users to name themselves whatever they want. Sounds nice, considering those two selling points exploit what arguably are the biggest grievances Facebook users have about the reining Goliath. The latter is likely a dig at a recent little imbroglio Facebook got itself involved in with the drag community after it started to strictly enforce its real-name-only policy.

But is Ello really the long-overdue Next Big Thing we’ve been waiting for since the old social media stalwarts have started suffering their respective mid-life crises? The following is what is stated in the Ello Manifesto…

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life. You are not a product.

Not really something one would consider groundbreaking ideas of what a new New Thing ought to be. One can’t really lay claim to the being the Next Big Thing when you define yourself as something an existing product is not. Facebook and Twitter came into the tech scene completely from left field. Their founders could not even define themselves in the early days much more state what their respective creations were not.

Google, for its part, was, by the time it latched on to its product development motto “Don’t be evil” long passed adolescence in tech years. And, a tech firm taking up a motto like that, will have by then realised that it already was the Next Big Thing of its time.

So, no, there simply is not enough substance in Ello’s conceptual framework to give it the gravity to suck Facebook’s atmosphere off it. Next Big Things are not about creating a “better” this or a “better” that. It is about coming up with something nobody’s ever imagined would become that big — which essentially means the Next One is probably gestating in a lab or back of an envelope somewhere on the planet’s surface, its designers only looking to get into building something driven by no more than fun or curiosity — something everybody else who doesn’t get it thinks is a waste of time. For now.

benign0

benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.