Hello (Again) Ello

Om Malik:

It is the antithesis of the likes-fueled, influencer-juiced world of Instagram and its algorithmic overlordship of creativity. If Instagram is the machine and crowd-powered enemy of creativity for the sake of creativity, Ello is just a place where there are fewer judgments about the art. It is not just about photos. There is art, fashion, music, design, architecture — and it feels like the East Village long before the faux-pubs, condos and the Whole Foods turned it into urban-suburbia.

There is a little current running through the network. There are no adverts because the company founders hated web advertising. I am not sure how they are doing as a business. But they are still around and have not raised new investment capital since their early days. They seem to be attracting new artists and creators.

…

It is weird, funky and fun — much like Tumblr was for most of its life before the puritans of New Jersey asphyxiated it. Ello lives in the shadow of the platform-controlled Internet doing its own thing. I have personally share one thing — just one message so far, but god, it is so much fun to waste a few minutes of my week looking at such beautiful art.

I had a look at Ello a while back, but couldn’t really find a compelling reason to stick around. Maybe time to take another gander…