http://betabeat.com/2014/09/ello-wil...-says-founder/
Update #1: Overwhelmed by the deluge of new users, Ello almost choked off all access for new members, but have gone all-hands-on-deck to keep Ello alive and soldier on through the hype.
Update #2: Brands are showing up like crazy to make profiles on Ello — here’s why it won’t ruin everything.
When we broke the news about Ello, a new social network that claims to be the safe haven from its fiendishly invasive competition, it mostly fell on deaf ears — but the past six months were nothing compared to what’s happened in the past 24 hours.
Since the sudden Facebook exodus to Ello, requests to join went from 4,000 to 27,000+ per hour, Twitter exploded with desperate requests for invites, eBay responded with an enormous black market for invites, and Ello became the fifth hottest trend on Google searches. No big deal.
Beyond the tongue-in-cheek quips that compared Ello’s sudden success to the hype around Diaspora or Google+, some people had legitimate concerns about the unexpected contender in the social media sphere. Mainly, their concerns were that users would be banned for posting porn, there wasn’t going to be an option for private profiles, and that eventually, Ello was doomed to sell out and become the kind of ad-driven monstrosity they claim to despise.
So we spoke to Ello founder Paul Budnitz to clear the air, and it turns out, none of that is really true.