The new social network Ello has become very popular attracting new members every day. As its founder Paul Budnitz said the new network accepts about 31,000 applications per hour.

The platform was initially designed to be used by about 90 friends of founder Paul Budnitz, who is a bike shop-owner, but it soon opened to a wider audience on August 2014.

The platform bets on a smart promotional strategy highlighting the anti-Facebook features, such as not accepting advertisements and not selling to third parties any information of its users.

Another main factor of its success is that people are always fascinated by the idea to be members of an exclusive club, while some others are simply tired of Facebook.

However, its founder does not consider the network to be the new competitor of Facebook.

“We don’t consider Facebook to be a competitor. We see it as an ad platform and we are a network,” he explained.

Regarding its funding program, he said that “the network will eventually make money by selling access to features”.

“Like the app store, we’re going to sell features for a few dollars,” Mr. Budnitz said.

The site, though, has a minimalist design and does not appear as user-friendly, as more established networks.

Some analysts, however, appeared skeptical about whether this idea could move forward by charging for certain network services anyone who wants to use them (the network is basically completely free). The problem, according to analysts, is that all successful alternative social networks, such as Pinterest and Instagram, have become popular because they are completely free.

At the moment, though, Ello seems to be the new trend increasing its new friends every day.