Even if your goal is, one day, to beat Facebook, you can’t start by taking them on head first. You have to go after a solid niche and grow from there. Ello didn’t, and they’re failing. Josh Constine:

Here’s the problem. Beating Facebook at its own game is like punching a wall 1.35 billion bricks thick. The network effect of its critical mass means you can’t usurp it by being a little better. The only social apps to really succeed since its launch have tried to go around Facebook’s wall by being different.

• Twitter – focuses on public content, not privacy
• Instagram – stripped out everything but photos for an easy, breezy, beautiful browsing experience built mobile-first
• Snapchat – made its content disappear, a refreshing alternative to Facebook and its Timeline where everything you say lives forever

Meanwhile, those that failed didn’t differentiate *cough* Google+ *cough*

Not having ads did not qualify Ello as functionally different. So as soon as people realized they could either post to their few smug friends who joined Ello, or everyone they know on Facebook, they dropped Ello on its face.

Also, I hate their interface. It’s too minimalist: I can’t figure out where the sidebar starts and the main content begins. I also can’t figure out which images are inanimate objects and which images are buttons.