The phrase “social network” should bring about a feeling of welcome, friendliness, interaction and an overall good sense of socializing. I suppose that the phrase in itself does. But when you add the concept of social networking and the knowledge of how many forms of it exist, I see it as more of a battleground where Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerry (News - Alert) Messenger (BBM) and several others around the world are all looking to be the social network of choice.

It seems that recently another new player has entered into the arena. Paul Budnitz founded a new social network that distinguishes itself as an alternative to Facebook (News - Alert). Essentially, Budnitz asked the question, “Have you ever wanted Facebook to get rid of those ads?” He answered yes to that question and then proceeded to do something about it. This has even been referred to as an anti-Facebook stance.

Ello is a startup which does not accept any type of advertising, does no data mining and has just a few images. It is viewed as a basic crisp and clean black text on a white background. CNET has compared this as still looking like a work in progress. You would not know that by looking at the fact that according to Ello, 35,000 people are asking to sign up on an hourly basis.

You may have noticed that I used the word “asking” above, that is because you cannot just sign up; rather, you must be invited to join. If you go to the Ello site the first thing that you will see is “Ello is invite only.” Even so, it does appear that its popularity is growing at such a fast rate that its servers were having problems in recent days in spite of the fact that you need an invitation to join.

There is a section of the Ello site that you can visit, the manifesto section. People who are interested in Ello are looking at the manifesto as sort of a social media battle cry. The manifesto reads as follows:

Your social network is owned by advertisers.

Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.

You are not a product.

Ello is currently running out of several offices located throughout the U.S. Budnitz, who is also the company’s CEO, works mostly out of Vermont, but does travel to the New York office. Some of the partners are working out of Colorado. Christopher-Ian Reichel, who is a user-experience executive in New York, said “I don’t know if it’s going to ever be ‘the next big thing,’ but it is definitely in the right place at the right time. And Facebook is at a critical moment where entire segments of its audience are all looking to jump ship. Ello is still buggy and somewhat empty and people are still joining.”

The timing does in fact seem to be right. Just a few months ago Facebook came under fire due to the fact that nearly 700,000 users had their News Feeds manipulated as part of a study it conducted along with a couple of universities. A very short time later, customers were once again at odds when Facebook began forcing customers to download a second application to their mobile devices in order to message with friends.

Possibly the biggest complaint that people currently have with Facebook that seems to be a blessing for Ello is the fact that a new policy at Facebook is cracking down on users who don’t go by their real name or at least a name that is “associated with a government ID.” My immediate reaction to this is that Facebook appears to be doing a background check on people. Not being able to use a pseudonym affects a lot of artists. Everyone in their respective professions know these people by their artistic names, not necessarily by their given names.

There is a subject that Budnitz will not be questioned on. We know that Ello has funds and backing, but he will not say where it is coming from, who is involved or how much capital it has received. Budnitz response is that “Yes, it’s a for-profit company. Otherwise it could never survive.”

Describing Ello in an email, Budnitz said, “Ello is clean and simple and let[s] us connect with our friends and see awesome stuff, without feeling manipulated by a big system that was making social networking no fun.” As for gathering information, he added “This information helps us understand how people are using Ello, so we can make Ello better. For example, if we create a feature that everybody is using, we want to know about that.”

There is a difference between gathering information to make your product better and using that information with several universities to assist them in whatever projects they are working on. These are two completely different concepts and what the manifesto attempts to address. In order to join, people must agree with Ello’s manifesto. If they click a button saying they don't, they're sent to Facebook's website.

Only time will tell if Ello will become a real threat to Facebook or if it will end up as just another unsuccessful attempt to compete. I, for one, do not like to see ads when going to sites such as Facebook, or Google (News - Alert). In fact, I experienced both an ad for a search that I did on Google in Facebook and scrolling down a little further a friend of mine posted if anyone wanted an invite to Ello. So maybe the timing is just right.