June 18, 2015 archive
Jun 18
TDYR 252 – Ello Launches iOS App And More…
Jun 18
TDYR 251 – Paralyzed By Podcasting Performance Pressure
Jun 18
Ello Releases iOS App And Drops Invitation-only Status To Let Everyone In
Today the team at Ello released an iOS app so that iPhone/iPad users can now very easily add posts and photos into Ello, read Ello posts and interact with people throughout the Ello community.
Co-founder Paul Budnitz wrote about the iOS app and also said that Android and Windows apps will be coming later this year.
You can download the Ello app in Apple's AppStore.
Along with the release of the iOS app is also the news that you no longer need to have an invitation to join Ello. As Budnitz writes:
There was suddenly a ton of press about Ello, but we chose to keep Ello invitation-only, to keep our community from growing too fast. We knew that the best way to create a strong & positive community is to start from friend to friend — and to create features for the artists & creative people that form our core today.
Today, though, the team is ready for growth and is letting anyone in. All you have to do is sign up through the main Ello page ... or though the iOS app.
Anyone can now join Ello.
The challenge Ello has is the same one of all online communities...
how do you become a place that people CHOOSE to spend their time in?
We all have a zillion choices today of different communities and websites in which we can spend our time. How does Ello become one of those for more people?
It's a variation of the "directory dilemma" that I wrote about for messaging apps. As I said there:
People will only use a communication application if the people they want to talk to are using the application.
Ello faces a similar challenge:
People will only use a social network if the people they want to talk to are using the social network.
Be that friends, family, work colleagues, celebrities, services, etc., etc.
If there is interesting content and conversations, people may join in. If not, people will wander off to the next community or site that interests them.
For me... perhaps it's the quirkiness of the monospace font... or the connection to Vermont... or just the fact that I have found a few people who I enjoy following and interacting with... but I'm there on Ello (as "danyork") and will continue to post and interact.
I'm looking forward to using the iOS app to see if that helps make the experience of using Ello that much easier. So far it seems quite nice!
If you gave Ello a try back in the fall when there was all the buzz... why not try it again now? And if you've never tried it, why not do so now?
I'm off to try the app some more...
Related Posts:
Jun 18
My Frustration With Privacy Screens For My MacBook Pro
My frustration is that it seems that the only real provider for a MacBook Pro is 3M (here's a search on Amazon) and the problem is simply this...
It's very hard to take the privacy screen on and off!
For whatever reason... perhaps the limited space on the edge of the screen... perhaps customer frustration with past implementations... 3M makes the privacy screen go all the way to the edge of the display and then has you mount it using a double-sided tape. There are no clips or anything that you slide your screen in to. You tape it on to the MBP screen.
Now... IN THEORY... you are supposed to be able to take the privacy screen on and off multiple times. The tape is supposed to keep working.
In practice, I've found that you can remove the screen and replace it... but only a couple of times.
After that... the tape loses its stickiness and the screen starts falling off.
With a previous laptop, this was fine. I mounted a privacy screen on the laptop and pretty much never took it off. It worked fine.
However, with this laptop, I've been in several situations where I wound up needing to give a presentation to a small group of people without a projector and so I needed to take the privacy screen off so that people could gather around and see the presentation. Additionally, I had a couple of situations at home where I wanted to have multiple people look at my laptop.
The end result is that the privacy screen no longer sticks to the MBP.
Now, 3M did provide a few extra strips of tape when I bought the screen... but I have no clue where I put those strips of tape.
My solution right now is to just apply a couple of pieces of regular clear tape to hold the screen in place. It works... although it doesn't look all that pretty.
What do any other MacBook Pro owners do for privacy screens?
Do you have another vendor of privacy screens you like? Do you just leave the screen always on? Do you keep re-applying the tape? Have you found a way to have clips on the side?
