Ok, the deal is on. As promised day one, to post my ‘image of the day’. Not the most easy task, as I spend nearly the entire day on the couch, eyes on the French rough coastline, half awake, half sleepy recovering from the night before.
But, the as promised, today post one for the booklet_to_be with 365 striking, inspirational, emotional images, my personal selection of images that reflect trends in contemporary culture.
Ello 2015!!
I got invited to the Ello network.
This morning, in my mailbox.
A reason enough to become ‚image of the day’, as I’m curious already for months to explore this new social network platform slash service founded by creative entrepreneur Paul Budnitz and Todd Berger in March 2014. It is currently in beta version, it’s free to use, and the Ello service claims several notable distinguishing intentions as a social network:
– never sell user data to advertisers or third parties
– never show advertisments
– do not enforce a real-name policy
Ello has a simple, very minimal design, the black smiley is it’s avatar icon and you can see it a bit like a cross between Twitter and Tumblr though with limited features so far.
What can you do or not do?
Users can post status updates, photos, and emojis and GIFs and comment on their friends’ posts.
You’re not hampered by a character limit.
There is a search tool to find the people you know though it’s been buggy and unreliable in our testing.
There’s a zero tolerance policy when it comes to abusive behaviour – we like.
You can follow people, but there’s a two-tier following system – true pals get put in your ‘friends’ category while casual acquaintances go into ‘noise’. Very handy, so I think, to separating ‚the wheat from the chaff’ in your online life.
There’s loads of essential features that are promised, such as private accounts, blocking and a notification center.
You can’t use it on your phone or tablet, unless it’s on a web browser – iOS and Android apps are in the offing, but it’s simple enough to use through a browser.
You can request an invite from the Ello site, or if you know someone who is already on there (:-)), we should be able to invite you from our own account.
Don’t see it as a break with Twitter, Facebook or any other mass network (They have their pro’s and con’s, you’re free to join in or leave them behind anyway) but as an intriguing exploration of ‚the new kid in town’, a front row seat to test it out and help it grow. We”ll see what this year brings for them, I certainly wish them all the best!
Later!
Kate
All images courtesy of Kate Stockman and Mashable.com