Another David wannabe has arrived to take on the Goliath-esque Facebook. And it’s currently the hottest by-invite-only party on the Internet.

Ello, the brainchild of 47-year-old Paul Budnitz is in many ways the Facebook of 2005 –– high on design, zero ads and easy to navigate. At least that’s the feeling one gets while visiting a few of the sample user profiles (the site is still in beta, meaning the final version is not up).

Features

You already know that it’s ad free. Another major plus is the profile name. You need not have your real name on the profile page. The social network, in fact, gained traction when Facebook tried to implement a real name policy, drawing the ire of the LGBTQ community.

Next, you can categorise Ello members as “friends” or “noise”, clearing up your news feed.

A major plus comes in the form of restricted censorship. “We didn’t think that we were able to decide what’s art and what’s not art and what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate,” Budnitz recently told MTV. But he also said a NSFW (Not Safe/Suitable For Work) feature is in the works and it needs to be used when any user posts sexually-explicit content.

Now for a big, big plus. You can upload GIFs or video-like pictures!

The logo

The black face with a smile is apparently a reference to the site’s policy of putting privacy first.

Revenue

Ello makes money by offering features one can buy, just like apps that can be bought. But what are these features? Wait for Ello to open up to the general public.

The founder

Paul Budnitz is also the founder of Kidrobot, a retailer of art toys, apparel and accessories. He runs Budnitz Bicycles. His co-founders are Todd Berger and Lucian Fohr, a two-man graphic design team based in Boulder, Colorado.

Facebook vs Ello

Consider Ello a wake-up call for Facebook, at least for the time being. Nobody thought Orkut would close down and MySpace would become smaller and smaller.

What’s the biggest bother of watching YouTube on mobile phones? Jerky videos. This is where Pune-born, San Francisco Bay Area-based Nickhil Jakatdar comes in.

In July 2008, he co-founded Vuclip. When Airtel aired its “Re. 1 mobile videos only” ad in 2013, Vuclip became popular (the two are strategic partners). The company known for mobile video streaming solutions today has over three million subscribers per quarter across six countries.

Correction: Owing to a technical error, the article on Vuclip (October 11) didn’t feature the introduction to Vuclip. The error is regretted. Here’s what you missed.

Here’s what the 42-year-old Nickhil –– also a tech entrepreneur who has made around $400 million from supporting and selling companies –– has to say about Vuclip.