Were you an early adapter on Twitter back in 2007? Do you have your first name as your Gmail account? Were you on Facebook with a .edu address? If you answered yes to any of these, you’re probably already signed up and posting away on Ello, the new, slightly mysterious social media platform that launched to much fanfare to the general public over the past week.

If you haven’t jumped on the Ello train just yet, the site, which is still in beta, has been active since earlier this summer, but really started to take off with those in the invite pool after Facebook tightened its policy on not allowing people to have accounts under pseudonyms. This was seen as offensive to many, particularly those in the LGBT community, as drag queens using their performer names were forced to surrender their pages. Facebook has since changed their policy to be more inclusive, but the timing for Ello was fortuitous.

So what’s the fuss about?

Ello’s goal, as stated in the company’s manifesto is to be a social network that is explicitly anti-advertising and design-focused: “We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity, and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.”

Who knows for how long. Facebook, Twitter and various other platforms resisted ads until, you know, they started making money. But that Ello has made “no ads” a part of their policy and instead plans to focus on providing partnership and premium opportunities to make revenue sounds promising.

For sure, Ello is pretty. Courier font in the manner of old typewriters and pleasing circles for avatars on a stark white background is easy on the eyes. Having spent some time on the site this week, it’s clear that the biggest hurdle for users so far is searchability. There’s no easy way to find your friends or figure out who in your network is already on board. The easiest way to do that? At the moment, it’s searching on Facebook and Twitter to see whom amongst your friends has posted there about joining Ello. You can also filter the people you follow into ‘friends’ and ‘noise’ which makes it easy to separate real conversations from news feeds and babble.

The best policy to abide by on the Internet – as we’ve seen from leaked celebrity nude photos, company Twitter gaffs, and the like – is to never put anything anywhere that you’d be embarrassed about if it got out. On Ello, that kind of thinking is paramount, as the entire site is public – there’s no such thing as a locked account or a privacy limitation yet, although the company has those features listed in its upcoming features. There is already a zero-tolerance policy for abusive behavior. This is in some ways freeing – you don’t have to remember if you put your aunt on limited – and in other ways pretty scary. We’ve gotten used to who is on our friend list on Facebook and what we feel comfortable sharing, so adjusting to the completely public Ello could put a damper on the candor with which we share with friends on other networks.

Any new social network takes time to build up an audience and create a place for safe, engaging conversations. It’s unclear what Ello’s role will be in the long run or if it will even have one beyond the initial buzz, but it’s exciting to see a new player in the  increasingly limited space for social media conversations that has been so dominated by Facebook and Twitter over the past several years.

Have you hopped on the Ello train yet? What kinds of conversations can you envision having there vs. elsewhere online?

By Laura Hertzfeld

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