Business journalists flocking to Ello

Caroline O’Donovan of Nieman Lab writes about the influx of business journalists using Ello to publish content.

O’Donovan writes, “Despite the initial splash of Ello’s release, it doesn’t feel like the mainstream conversation has moved there. The company hasn’t released numbers on active users, but early analysis suggests that only a small fraction of Ello’s comparatively small user base posts regularly on the site.

“But it’s possible that for niche communities like Finance Ello, the platform’s clunkiness and small user base is more feature than bug. After all, that’s what lends the site its air of privacy: As with so many things, if it were easier to use or more popular, it wouldn’t be as fun.

“Cale Weissman, a reporter for Business Insider Intelligence, agrees that Ello’s alternative, artisanal aesthetic could be part of the draw. Recall the 20 percent of Finance Ello that’s a joke — maybe part of it is the irony of a bunch of reporters who obsess over markets and jobs rates and stock indexes electing somewhat arbitrarily to descend on a design-forward social media platform that has rejected the primary way social networks make money.

“Whether you see the humor in that or not, the really funny thing is that Finance Ello might actually be taking off. ‘I think if anyone actually knew what it took to get people to move platforms en masse they’d be really rich,’ Weisenthal says. ‘Still seems like kind of a mystery to me.'”

Read more here.