Possibility of Facebook being replaced?
venturebeat.com/2014/10/24/even-with-5-5m-in-funding-ellos-future-looks-unclear/
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-facebook-real-name-policy-may-drive-lgbt-users-ello-1695724
Facebook is often seen to be the core social media site that people use, but in March 2014, Ello was introduced to the public as an alternative social media site. Although also a social media site, Ello sets itself apart by several features: its ad-free simplicity, its vow to never sell user data to third-parties, its lack of enforcement of a real-name policy and admittance by an invite-only system. This platform promotes itself as a service that builds a strong community that places emphasis on its users and considers them the client, whereas the users on Facebook could be considered the “commodity” and advertisers the client. To generate revenue, Ello would instead charge its users – “power users” who want to get more out of the Ello experience – for additional features. Now that Ello has gained 5.5 million in funding, the need for these “power users” to meet its expectation has increased.
To be able to meet these expectations, before Ello can have a sufficient number of “power users,” it needs to have users. Period. So how likely will there be people either transitioning from Facebook to Ello, or using both platforms? To gain some insight into the probability of this, we can apply the topic of Information Cascades. Learnt in class, there are two reasons why Facebook users would join others users in jumping platforms: Informational effects and direct-benefit effects. For social media users, generally they have a direct benefit from a large user population; in comparison to Facebook’s billion active user population, Ello only has a mere 1 million users. Even on an informational level, unless the few features on Ello are more appealing to a user than Facebook’s large population, evidently, there should be no reason for Facebook users to switch platforms; however, seen in the second article, there have been users – mainly those in the LGBTQ community – who are on the lookout for other sites that do have a “real name” policy. To them, the payoff of keeping their identities anonymous for the sake of their own safety far outweighs the payoff of having a large user community.
However, those who are changing platforms are a minority of the population. Even with the loss of a few people from Facebook to Ello, Facebook users most likely will continue using this powerhouse because of the already large population established.