Ello Formally Promises To Remain Ad-Free, Raises $5.5M 167
Social media site Ello is presented as the anti-Facebook, promising an ad-free social network, and that they won't sell private data. Today, they've also announced that Ello has become a Public Benefit Corporation, and that the site's anti-advertising promise has been enshrined in a corporate charter. The BBC reports on the restrictions that Ello has therefore entered into, which mean the site cannot, for monetary gain,
- Sell user-specific data to a third party
- Enter into an agreement to display paid advertising on behalf of a third party; and
- In the event of an acquisition or asset transfer, the Company shall require any acquiring entity to adopt these requirements with respect to the operation of Ello or its assets.
While that might turn off some potential revenue flows (the company says it will make money by selling optional features), as the linked article points out, it hasn't turned off investors; Ello has now raised $5.5 million from investors.
Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would imagine it's down to too few people being on it still. There was such initial hype for it, then nothing. How long do you suppose people will wait before just not bothering with it?
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I don't know that many people that have gotten an invite to join, but the ones that have don't really have anything positive to say about it.
I would imagine it's down to too few people being on it still. There was such initial hype for it, then nothing. How long do you suppose people will wait before just not bothering with it?
I've got an account and it hasn't reached that critical mass of users that you know to make me want to do anything with it.. I haven't logged in since I registered.
I cant see it taking off
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My experience with the Ello crowd is the same as with the Google+ crowd. About 8 of my friends left Facebook, cursing the day it was made and whipping it the cyber finger saying they'd never deal with Zuck and his ilk again and every one of them was back within three weeks. Fewer left for Ello but every one of them is back in Facebookland without so much as a peep about their experience abroad. Meh. It is what it is.
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I left facebook shortly after signing up, and haven't looked back. It's been about 4 years now.
Now if only I could convince Verizon/HTC that I don't need the facebook app on my phone.
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Re:Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:4, Interesting)
The site just wasn't ready for mass adoption. There's a great idea behind it, but as of last week, it was just so damn unusable. I'm tempted to think that their marketing blitz was premature. But perhaps the goal wasn't to show off the site so much as to get just enough attention to turn the heads of investors. If so, maybe it worked. They've gained some cash flow while also validating the idea that there IS a desire for what they are building.
Now, they can use some of this funding to actually make the UI usable and add in those missing features. Maybe when their next media campaign comes around, there will be a site worth applauding. We can only hope.
Good for them. I'll keep my account active and hope it turns into a site
Re:Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most people don't give a crap about Facebook's privacy policies. I personally don't touch facebook with a 10 ft pole but that is my choice and understand why others keep going there. That makes me about the only person in my family and social circle that does not use it. Stay in touch with the people you care about and you can always connect with them, it just takes effort. I don't know anybody who would move from facebook because people are there already. It's a noble thing to try and create something better. However, if you have ever seen the Personal Power Grid, any company would be in the Ceaselessly Striving box, they are taking action and have no control over the outcome. Most users just do not give a crap and are in the Acceptance (Let It Go) corner.
Re:Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just too few people... it's also feature incomplete.
It's already started... Ello has failed to learn the lesson of G+ and odds are, it will suffer the same fate. Gatekeeping at launch is just shooting yourself in the foot - people want to try your system, and if you lock them out... they aren't coming back. First impressions matter, and a barred door with a sign saying "only kewl kids allowed" makes a powerful first impression. In addition, G+, and Diaspora, and now Ello can't seem to grasp that to most people, personal privacy is just one of the many factors that they weigh. On top of the network effect there's also the features the system supports (chat, pages/groups, games, etc...), and all of the would be pretenders have fallen short on that front. (Or added them too late to make a difference.)
On top of that... Ello is going to have to come up with some pretty impressive optional features in order to induce people to pay for them - things the users can't get elsewhere while *also* providing a complete set of the features users have come to expect. That's a very tall order.
There's no doubt that like G+, Ello might be able to eke out a meager living on the fringes... but as a Facebook killer, or even serious competitor, it's already dead.
Re:Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's already started... Ello has failed to learn the lesson of G+ and odds are, it will suffer the same fate. Gatekeeping at launch is just shooting yourself in the foot - people want to try your system, and if you lock them out... they aren't coming back
There are scalability issues that need to be addressed. It's simply impossible without an incredible risk and cost, to have the same scale as an established competitor, so gate-keeping is one option.
but as a Facebook killer, or even serious competitor, it's already dead.
Why does everything have to kill what's already there? Did Ello ever claim to be such? Talk about a strawman.
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In the case of a general social networking tool, there kinda can be only one. People won't check every site every day, and the one they check most often will be the one with most of their friends. If you have "Ello friends" and "Facebook friends", odds are you'll visit one site much less, and your friends there will drift further away.
There's room for various niche sites, but they need a differentiator. I can imagine Ello wanting to be the social networking site for those who want privacy, but strikes me as
Re:Wonder if their time hasn't already passed... (Score:4, Interesting)
In the case of a general social networking tool, there kinda can be only one.
You're again... making assumptions. What precludes Ello from occupying a target niche of social networking? Have you not heard of LinkedIn? Did Stackoverflow *have* to beat out Yahoo Answers in order to gain traction and meet it's need?
It's a massive simplification to assume that a dominant player in a space where network effects reinforce their position is unassailable. How do you think Google and Apple were able to make any inroads against the Windows ecosystem? By addressing an area where Microsoft simply could not compete (mobile). Facebook likewise simply *cannot* compete where strong privacy is a key requirement. Their entire business model goes against it (similarly Google to an extent). Diaspora was a failure simply because people don't want to self-host, though technically their proposal had merit. Also 10 years ago, Friendster and MySpace were dominant - where are they now? Not to say that Facebook is doomed, more to say the market can and will evolve.
What is more interesting than competing with Facebook, IMHO, is to assail the entire concept that personal (sometimes PII) user data is a business asset that should always be sold, licensed or exploited. Legally preventing themselves from profiting from that data poses a very interesting business limitation and a possible template for others to copy - sometimes you gain more by leaving something on the table.
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This. And what do you do when you get an invite. Tell your friends about it? But wait, they have to wait now to join so you get to have a power social networking site with the only person you can share with is yourself.
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This. This is totally why Google Wave failed. What could have been a revolutionary collaboration tool set to replace email, Google Docs, and all other similar services into one unified interface failed totally by only allowing invited users to participate, IMHO. What good is a collaboration tool if the people you want to collaborate with can't access it? Talk abou
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In my local area, the only Ello users are me, that guy at the bong store, and that guy at the coffee shop who keeps telling everyone that he doesn't even *OWN* a TV.
Investors understand (Score:1)
That it is easy enough to work around such promises. (Not saying Ello would do that, just saying this depends on their intentions not on these promises)
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G+? (Score:3)
So it's trying to be Google+ without the popularity? Oh, but pay for aspects of it directly?
Re:G+? (Score:5, Funny)
Google+ is popular?
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Well, it must see some traffic ... I see a lot of users posting here on Slashdot which apparently authenticate as their Google+ users.
Me, I've avoided it like the plague. But someone is clearly using it.
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Yes, I had him in my feed for a while and removed him promptly. Not a fun person to have in your feed.
https://plus.google.com/+Felic... [google.com]
is probably the most entertaining person they have on there.
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I see a lot of users posting here on Slashdot which apparently authenticate as their Google+ users.
Using Google+ for authentication is not the same as using it as a social network. I use my Google+ ID to log in to a number of Google services. I never use it for socializing.
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Using Google+ for authentication (really, just using your Google Account) is different from using your G+ account as a social network account.
You can use Facebook to log in to a lot of services as well, but that's not really "using" Facebook because you're not doing anything with what Facebook offers. You're just telling a website that you are who you say you are.
Hell, some s
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You can use Facebook to log in to a lot of services as well, but that's not really "using" Facebook because you're not doing anything with what Facebook offers. You're just telling a website that you are who you say you are.
Sounds like you're using Facebook for exactly it's intended purpose: to allow someone to build a big database of things that you do to target advertising. You're not just telling a website something, you're telling Facebook what other sites you visit and care enough about to log in to and what your identity on those sites is.
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Sometimes "whoosh" just doesn't seem adequate...
Re:G+? (Score:5, Funny)
On Slashdot, an alternative joke might've made the OP's intent clearer:
"So it's trying to be Diaspora without the popularity?"
Sustainable business model (Score:3)
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What, you mean a business model in which they expect people to actually pay in order to use something, on the Internet!? Outrageous!
In all honesty, whilst it is refreshing to see a business plan slightly more concrete than the usual "1. build a huge client base, 2. ????*, 3. profit," I can't help agreeing with you. They won't succeed without offering something very, very compelling compared to the existing offerings, and what makes the existing offerings compelling derives from the fact that everyone is
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Evil is a relative concept nowadaws
Oooh ... formally promised ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, they formally promised.
Is a formal promise more legally binding than a non-formal promise? Is it transferable and binding to someone who subsequently buys Ello?
It sounds good in principle, but is it really legally binding in any sense?
As always, I remain skeptical about such things ... because time and time again companies have reneged on such promises. Or after they've gone through bankruptcy/get sold the new owner simply ignores any of these things.
Re:Oooh ... formally promised ... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. A corporation's charter is legally binding on it, and "benefit corporations" are a distinct type of legal entity [slashdot.org].
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Well, you've not given a meaningful link since it's the same slashdot article we're all reading right now.
But, I'll tell you what ... you go ahead and trust them, and I won't.
We'll see which of us gets disappointed in that scenario.
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Mr. Slippery did not say he trusted them. I'm not sure why you would think he does. He might for all we know, but he did not indicate so.
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So, from the FAQ page:
Followed by:
So, this is a voluntary thing, doesn't involve any certification, has no actual enforcement, and only exist in about half the US states or slightly less.
So, you'll excuse me if I don't immediately see
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I suspect that a company that builds it reputation on "we wont sell your stuff", and attracts customers based primarily on that mission statement, would lose said customers if it pulled a 180. Whether they can replace those customers is a different matter. But its like the question of whether or not Toys R Us is legally bound to sell toys forever, or if it can turn into a meat shop: they absolutely can decide to go the meat route, but it would be silly and completely nonsensical given their name and market
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The problem is if you go bankrupt, or get bought in a hostile takeover (or just simply by assholes like Facebook because they want to) ... they don't care about the reputation you've built up.
They care about all of that juicy data which can be monetized.
And these promises may or may not be legally binding on whoever buy
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Either poster of parent did not bother to read further, or he is deliberately withholding information (a very nasty form of trolling).
Benefit corporations are required in their Annual Report to stockholders to address their progress toward their stated goals, and their conformance with stated restrictions on activities. These reports are audited the same way any corporation's annual reports are audited.
It is up to the stockholders to use this information to decide whether the corporation's board of direct
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So, all I need is to control enough of a voting majority, and I can override this wonderful abstract principle with a wave of my hand?
Because, nobody has ever abused a voting majority in a corporation to do whatever they please.
So, Facebook quietly buys all the shares, and then says "nah, we're not doing that any more, tough" ... and then what is
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That might be a concern. But I am not addressing that.
Your original comment neglected to mention one pertinent fact: that there is a form of monitoring and control of benefit corporations. My earlier comment only addressed that deficiency.
Whether benefit corporations could actually work as intended is an entirely different issue. I don't have an answer to that. Neither do you. There are not enough data available yet to make any kind of reasoned judgment.
But that does not excuse the deliberate withholding
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Wait. You're trusting investors and stockholders... to ensure that the company sticks to their profitibility-limiting "benefit corp" goals?
Yes, that seems to be the case.
...investors and stockholders, whose primary goal is to make money...
No, that qualifying phrase does not fit. Investors and stockholders whose primary goal is to make money should be doing something else than involving themselves in a benefit corporation. They also shouldn't be putting a lot of money into Friends Of Trees, endowments of the arts, historical preservation societies, etc.
Benefit corporations are not a part of capitalism. They are not free market entities. Like the FOSS movement that has provided you with the benefits of Linux (w
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You're confusing certification with the status of a benefit corporation. Certification has no legal enforcement power other than revoking certification; OTOH, under the model legislation [benefitcorp.net] it just takes 2% of stockholders to initiate a benefit enforcement proceeding [apexlg.com] against a benefit corporation and have court enforce the public benefit provisions of its char
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The IP is nothing special. It's the user base that has value. They can't get the users without the restricitons.
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Can you cite specific legal precedent to support that claim? Or are you merely hoping it's true?
If they go bankrupt, do you really think when their assets are being liquidated you can enforce those restrictions?
My guess is, this isn't nearly as iron clad as people think it is.
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I'm not the one making the assertion that just because the company makes this empty promise it's legally binding.
I'm questioning when someone says "oh, it's legally binding and iron clad" -- which I think is completely unsupported statement based on the fact that numerous companies haven't lived up to similar promises.
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They can't get the users without the restricitons.
At least, until the first post-merger unannounced unilateral no-notice change of terms of service.
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What happens to the promises in the event of liquidation and firesale of assets and IP? It sounds like the charter is only binding if the sale is voluntary and the purchasing entity agrees to it - if the sale is involuntary then the purchaser doesn't have to agree to anything other than the sale price.
what about being evil? (Score:1)
Do their statutes forbid that?
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You know the board of directors for the Corp for Public Broadcasting is, by law, an even split between Republicans and Democrats, right?
I think *your* bias is showing.
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As long as we're being pedantic, the current chair was reappointed by Obama, after she was appointed by Bush. She donated to McCain, Romney, and the republican party. http://www.campaignmoney.com/p... [campaignmoney.com]
So let's just call it even.
CPB is required, by law, to be strictly objective, and has internal reviews to ensure objectivity. That is a better deal than you will get from Fox, MSNBC, WSJ, or NYT.
You are right that CPB != NPR, but they are tightly bound, and the exact relationship is complex. Regardless, th
Ironic: if you "OK" the manifesto it shares on FB (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironic: when you "OK" the manifesto...it invites you to "Share the manifesto" on Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, Google+, Tumblr, Reddit and LinkedIn.
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The page also has Google Analytics tracking bugs in it.
Re:Google Analytics (Score:2)
I don't see how anyone can believe this:
Ello uses an anonymized version of Google Analytics to gather and aggregate general information about user behavior. Google may use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the site, compiling reports on site activity for us and providing other services relating to site activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. To the best of our knowledge, the information gathered by Google on Ello’s behalf is collected in such a way that neither Ello, nor Google, can easily trace saved information back to any individual user.
Re:Ironic: if you "OK" the manifesto it shares on (Score:5, Insightful)
And it serves up data from cloudfront, which is just a front end for Amazon's analytics, isn't it?
It also makes references to integrating with YouTube, and doing an auto-push to "other" networks (which I assume is the list you gave).
So, we won't sell your stuff, but we'll be so tightly integrated with these other sites that they'll know what you're doing anyway.
If the whole point is to avoid Facebook et al, WTF is the point of broadcasting to them everything you do?
Goodbye Ello.
So right (Score:2)
I'd respect the intent if "Sell user-specific data to a third party" was replaced by "Allow 3rd parties any access to your online transactions" since metadata correlations -> identity match.
Further, I expect identifying the class of people who move from the other social networks to Ello due to tracking concerns provides a very valuable dataset.
Some really dumb investors. (Score:1)
Some really dumb investors. Ello looks like something I could write in PHP in about a day for $100 bucks.
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I challenge you to recreate their homepage in about a day in whatever! There is much planning, thought and work that went into it I'm sure. Even the templates you buy for X amount schlep together in a day took more than a day to build.
As to you
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Get on with it, or get over it.
If you're sitting around here on Slashdot lamenting how you could write the same thing and be bilking investors ... then why the hell aren't you?
Either you can, and you're just too damned lazy.
Or you can't, in which case nobody wants to hear it.
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Where are my mod points when I need them. (Score:2)
>> The news here is that you're willing to spend an entire day touching PHP for only $100
Funniest thing I read all day.
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Seems like you missed out there, but there's more to a business than a codebase.
byby (Score:1)
n/c
Open social network standard (Score:2)
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Fuck that.
What you're suggesting means that all of the social networks we're trying to avoid will still get all of our data.
The last thing I'd want is some open standard where every damned social network cross-talks with one another.
Some of us are trying to get away from the intrusive crap wh
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What you're suggesting means that all of the social networks we're trying to avoid will still get all of our data.
It sounds like you would be a good candidate for the disconnected mode of operation then (IE, don't propagate information on your domain to other domains). The key here is control is being given back to the users, not owned by a single entity with a vested interest in selling your information.
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See, that assumes I place any trust in the domains to actually follow my wishes, or not change their minds, or not get bought.
For crap like this, the only way to win is to not play.
At the end of the day, all of these players want to sell your information ... because that is their actual product.
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Tent [www.tent.io] is attempting to do this.
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We already have that. It's open and it's not centralized. It's called email and websites.
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In bankruptcy, information is an asset (Score:5, Insightful)
And no matter what the charter is, if they are liquidated the court will sell all of your data to the highest bidder to pay off creditors.
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And no matter what the charter is, if they are liquidated the court will sell all of your data to the highest bidder to pay off creditors.
That is true if the user data is considered part of the bankruptcy estate. But that won't necessarily be the case. Under US law, everyone automatically has copyright for anything they write or compose. If the primary concern is to protect user privacy, the user agreement for the site could stipulate that users retain copyright to all their data, and the site has a nonex
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Data is not copyrightable. Your posts extolling the virtues of free living and your treatise on the need for end to end encryption in email would be completely safe from sale, but your height, weight, dog's name, friend list, favorite meal, phone number and the fact that you spoke often of your hemorrhoids is all just data about you which is non-copyrightable.
The ability to even write a licence where you retain your data and still give them permission to transmit it to a third party (the entire reason for a
Keyword 3rd party (Score:1)
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Keyword 3rd party. Yes you will get ads but they will be served by themselves or second party partners instead of 3rd.
Holy shit, users will be serving advertisements to themselves?
Lots of weasel words in there (Score:5, Insightful)
"user-specific" = "we are going to sell aggregated data"
"on behalf of a third party" = "we are going to get direct ad sales up and running soon"
#3 is just hysterical ... if they get acquired, they lose the right to any such thing as they become a wholly owned subsidiary, subject to whatever policies the parent company deems fit. As if it hasn't already happened about a billion times by startups who did one thing, then were bought up and summarily dismantled. Ello makes a false assumption that people give a damn about their product. An acquiring company may see it as a way to get a seasoned dev/qe team and shutter the service entirely. The examples of plucky startups that got pulled into the Apple/Google/Microsoft/$GINORMOUS_COMPANY orbit and summarily forgotten or dissolved is pretty big.
I admire what they are trying to do but... (Score:2)
Ello has a steep climb ahead of itself. They seem to have adopted the mobile app business model. You get most of the functionality for free but if you want the good stuff you'll have to spend a few bucks.
Personally, I'd be happy to give them a few dollars if I had an iron clad guarantee that none of my personal information is going to be shopped to the highest bidder.
But in the social network space it's all about scale. Massive scale like Facebook and Twitter have. It's going to be a tough sell to people th
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You also can't build that kind of scale for $5M, even today.
Its like someone announcing that they're getting into the atomic collider game and have raised another $107. Just makes them look silly.
Wow, very annoying front page (Score:2)
1. Enable JavaScript (OK, everybody requires that, NBD) but then the real kicker 2. You have this mass of circles that heave and scroll as you move your pointer. Sea-sickness. OMG, you're supposed to click those circles? Why???
Ad-free, how about government free (Score:2)
It would be nice if the company was run from a country that didn't throw its constitution out the window when it becomes inconvenient.
Or what? (Score:2)
What happens if they don't follow the rules? Will they serve prison time?
About that elephant (Score:2)
Company takes in a five million dollar funding round.
Company promises to never make a profit.
How are they going to pay back the funding?
What exactly is the company that paid the money "investing" in if the recipient company never plans to get money from their "customers"?
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Randomly spaced fonts WOULD be harder to read.
However, most variable spaced fonts are carefully designed, and their spacing is consistent per character and the design frequently improves readability of the text. There are exceptions, especially with fonts meant more to be "creative", but the goals are significantly different with those fonts to begin with.
Monospaced text is certainly legible, but not overwhelmingly so. It's also a gigantic waste of space on a page/screen. I usually only use it when align
Re:All that money... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any typesetter will tell you that the choice of font is important to getting your message across.
Ello's choice of a mono sans-serif font is significant for indicating that their message is a simple but powerful one. And that they are significantly different from their competitors.
Volkswagen in the 1970s used the same approach to emphasize that their vehicles were so different from USA cars that you could not measure their performance using the same yardstick. Volkswagen was all about mpg and economy when USA car makings were competing on creature comforts and acceleration. Ello's choice of font is emphasizing that its product should not be judged with the same criteria that Facebook wants you to use.
The danger with Ello's choice of font is that if used in conveying any message that is not simple, like instructions or an argument about the evils of advertising, many readers may feel like they are being treated as grade schoolers, and be turned off by the typesetting. Time will tell whether Ello will avoid that pitfall. Hopefully they have already chosen a proportional font for lengthier prose.
ello font = Dwarf Fortress (Score:2)
>> Ello's choice of a mono sans-serif font is significant for indicating that their message is a simple but powerful one
Or, that they all play a lot of Dwarf Fortress.
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Of course horseshit is just the thing to attract more people to your point of view.
Your slashdot id is low enough to suggest that you are older than 15. So perhaps it is time to learn to argue like an adult.
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You're attacking the wrong person. The person you're attacking is making fun of the person who claimed "research".
Slashdot, c'mon. I know that reading is a lost art, but could you at least make an effort?
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No, it's more valid. Also, it's correct.
You can have all the studies you want concluding that tomatoes are vegetables, but they're fucking fruits.
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Re:All that money... (Score:4, Funny)
Monospaced fonts have a warm and rich sound that you just can't get out of a CD or digital file.
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But being web-only is a huge handicap right now.
Got any figures to back that up?
Until very recently there was no official app for reddit.