FACEBOOK VS ELLO:Would you say hello to Ello?


The latest attempt at Facebook killer is nothing but misplaced idealism.
Congrats, dude! You just scored an invite to Ello, the hottest social network that's totally going to topple that capitalist cesspool known as Facebook.
It's about damn time, because I hate waking up every morning, going to my connected device, opening Facebook and seeing nothing but updates from my real-life friends, news I'm interested in, and images of frolicking puppies. Man am I tired of that crap.
That's why I'm so excited about Ello, the latest attempt to make us forget about that little social network of a billion people that rules our lives and makes us slaves to advertisers.
Ello is here to set us free from our long nightmare of perpetual content consumption by creating a social network that's free from advertisers, but more importantly, free from any content whatsoever! Just head over to one of your many friends who were slumming on Twitter over the weekend for an Ello invite, and then check out their Ello profile page. I'll give you a moment to absorb all that white space and black circles. Do you feel cleansed? You've already forgotten about Facebook, haven't you?
OpinionsTo describe Ello as having minimalist design is like describing the NFL's domestic abuse troubles as "pesky." In fact, Ello looks like something a couple of determined teens could build over a weekend with some caffeine and a WIX account. And that's the point, I guess, because Ello wants to be the anti-Facebook. It wants an experience that's pure "empowerment" and free from calls to action to buy chinos from evil corporations like the Gap.
Of course, such lofty ambitions can't really be achieved without an official manifesto, and Ello has one in spades. I'd even go so far as to say that the service seemed to spend more time writing this gem than they did, I don't know, building actual features.
Ello
As I read that idealistic punch to the nads, the two questions floating in my head were how long the beards of the white male co-founders were, and what variety of craft beer were they drinking when they wrote it.
Ello wants you to believe it's offering an alternative to Facebook that's free of manipulation, but that's exactly what Ello is doing to you by forcing you to accept arguments about Facebook and advertising as if they're black and white. Calling Facebook evil, which is essentially what Ello is doing, is the easiest way to rile up the mobs who somehow feel wronged by Facebook. But the fact is that the users are the ones who create their own fate on social networks like Facebook and the Internet at large. Are you pissed at Facebook because your newsfeed is filled with mundane blatherings from your so-called friends? That's not Facebook's fault. That's your fault for accepting 3,000 friend requests since college. Ello will not be able to help you not be a narcissist.
But what about those evil ads Facebook keeps running? Well, folks, that's the price of admission for a free service. It's true that some of the ads that pop up in my newsfeed are not relevant to me, but I have the good sense to tell Facebook. And when I do, I'm served up something that's usually more in my wheelhouse of relevancy. Yes, I've bought goods and services that originated from a Facebook advertisement. I've also operated on the other side of the coin, spending ad dollars on conversion ads for an app I'm building. And you know what? It's without a doubt the best money I've spent so far on marketing, and my conscience is clear. But according to Ello's manifesto, I'm probably going to burn in advertiser hell.
Ello can be as idealistic as it wants right now, but if you hadn't heard, the company took money from venture capitalists. And unless its' a new breed of VC that don't care about a return on their investment, Ello better be prepared to get creative with its business model if it doesn't plan to allow advertisers into its shangri-la. And charging a la carte for features doesn't exactly feel like trailblazing to me. If you hate ads in your newsfeed, you're going to really hate notifications from Ello asking you to buy a feature so you can do something that's absolutely free on Facebook and every other similar service in existence.
If I were Ello, I would have launched on mobile. That way, the familiarity with in-app purchases is planted firmly in the psyche of users. Ultimately though, it's not advertising that's going to dictate whether Ello will sink or swim. It will be who's on the network that you actually care about. And while the trendy early adopters may be flocking to Ello, you probably won't find your mom or your sister's new baby pictures. The people who you love do not care about Ello's faux idealism, and neither should you.
pcmag.

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Sandhurst's sheikhs: Why do so many Gulf royals receive military training in the UK? A parade outside the building at Sandhurst Continue reading the main story In today's Magazine The death list that names 5,000 victims Is this woman an apostate? Voices from a WW1 prison camp The Swiss selfie scandal Generations of foreign royals - particularly from the Middle East - have learned to be military leaders at the UK's Sandhurst officer training academy. But is that still a good idea, asks Matthew Teller. Since 1812, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, on the Surrey/Berkshire border, has been where the British Army trains its officers. It has a gruelling 44-week course testing the physical and intellectual skills of officer cadets and imbuing them with the values of the British Army. Alongside would-be British officers, Sandhurst has a tradition of drawing cadets from overseas. Many of the elite families of the Middle East have sent their sons and daughters. 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Sheikh Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, King Abdullah, Sultan Qaboos Sandhurst alumni: King Hamad of Bahrain, King Abdullah of Jordan and Sultan Qaboos of Oman It's a place where future leaders get to know each other, says Michael Stephens, deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, Qatar. And Sandhurst gives the UK influence in the Gulf. "The [UK] gets the kind of attention from Gulf policy elites that countries of our size, like France and others, don't get. It gives us the ability to punch above our weight. "You have people who've spent time in Britain, they have… connections to their mates, their teachers. Familiarity in politics is very beneficial in the Gulf context." "For British people who are drifting around the world, as I did as a soldier," says Brigadier Peter Sincock, former defence attache to Saudi Arabia, "you find people who were at Sandhurst and you have an immediate rapport. I think that's very helpful, for example, in the field of military sales." The Emir of Dubai Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum with his son after his Passing Out Parade at Sandhurst in 2006 Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai, with his son in uniform at Sandhurst in 2006 Her Majesty The Queen's Representative His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, The Emir of Qatar inspects soldiers during the 144th Sovereign's Parade held at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on April 8, 2004 in Camberley, England. Some 470 Officer cadets took part of which 219 were commissioned into the British Army Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar until 2013, inspects soldiers at Sandhurst in 2004 Emotion doesn't always deliver. In 2013, despite the personal intervention of David Cameron, the UAE decided against buying the UK's Typhoon fighter jets. But elsewhere fellow feeling is paying dividends. 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Over the years donations like this have saved the UK taxpayer a considerable amount of money." But what happens when Sandhurst's friends become enemies? In 2001, then-prime minister Tony Blair visited Damascus, marking a warming of relations between the UK and Syria. Shortly after, in 2003, Sandhurst was training officers from the Syrian armed forces. Now, of course, Syria is an international pariah. Journalist Michael Cockerell has written about Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi's time at the Army School of Education in Beaconsfield in 1966: "Three years [later], Gaddafi followed a tradition of foreign officers trained by the British Army. He made use of his newfound knowledge to seize political power in his own country." Ahmed Ali Sandhurst-trained Ahmed Ali was a key player in the Egyptian military's removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi That tradition persists. In the 1990s Egyptian colonel Ahmed Ali attended Sandhurst. 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"He happened to see me talking to heads of state - the Sultan of Brunei, the Sultan of Oman, the Bahrainis, the Saudis - and he said 'How do you know all these guys?' The answer was because they went to Sandhurst." Today, Sandhurst has reportedly trained more officer cadets from the UAE than from any other country bar the UK. The May 2014 intake included 72 overseas cadets, around 40% of whom were from the Middle East. "In the future," says Maryam al-Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, "people will look back at how much Britain messed up in the [Middle East] because they wanted to sell more Typhoon jets to Bahrain, rather than stand behind the values of human rights and democracy." "It's one thing saying we're inculcating benign values, but that's not happening," says Habiba Hamid. Sandhurst is "a relic of the colonial past. They're not [teaching] the civic values we ought to find in democratically elected leaders." line Who else went to Sandhurst? Princes William and Harry, Winston Churchill, Ian Fleming, Katie Hopkins, Antony Beevor, James Blunt, Josh Lewsey, Devon Harris (From left to right) Princes William and Harry Sir Winston Churchill Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond (but did not complete training) Katie Hopkins, reality TV star Antony Beevor, historian James Blunt, singer-songwriter Josh Lewsey, World Cup-winning England rugby player Devon Harris, member of Jamaica's first bobsleigh team line Sandhurst says that "building international relations through military exchanges and education is a key pillar of the UK's international engagement strategy". Sandhurst may be marvellous for the UK, a country where the army is subservient to government, but it is also delivering militarily-trained officers to Middle Eastern monarchies where, often, armies seem to exist to defend not the nation but the ruling family.

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