The new buzz in town is Ello, which as of this writing is still in beta and invite-only mode. The newest social media network site professes to be anti-Facebook. It was created by a group of artists and designers led by Paul Budnitz, who also stands as the group's spokesperson. What is striking about Ello is that it is ad-free. Budnitz says that they were tired of the ads as well as data mining and selling, which is why they created the new network, Business Insider reports.

Budnitz added that because joining is by invitation-only, they have been receiving as many as 27,000 requests each hour. The concept remains that Ello is free, but if members want to have some of its must-have features then a small fee will be charged. 

The amount of screen real estate, due to the lack of ads, gives Ello a very clean and streamlined look, giving more visual impact to user profiles. Users can customize their profile, giving it a tone of its own, with the header photo capable of being expanded into its full size. Of course, everything will not be visible when you visit a profile but you can see all of it by scrolling upwards.

It is still in closed beta as the designers are still working on some of the social network's features, but overall it is already functional. Users are already able to make comments, see how many views a post has received, post GIFs and images as well as @mention other users. There are great emojis as well.

Budnitz said that there will be more features added in the future, such as integration of audio with SoundCloud, reposts, an Android and iPhone app, integration of video, private accounts and @@private messaging.

You can browse Ello through surfing either a Noise or Friends feed. The latter shows full posts with large images. On the other hand, Noise feeds are compressed into summaries just like in Tumblr, which makes browsing easier.