Ello, @CreativeOrder has joined, have you?

Being heralded as “the new Facebook” by several traditional outlets who should know better, Ello is an ad-free social network that has seen exponential growth over the last week after a disastrous handling of real name regulation by Facebook with the gay community. 40,000 signups per hour isn’t anything to sniff at but its lofty manifesto has left many wondering how lights will be kept on down the line.

The design team Todd & Lucian co-creators of Ello said in their recent newsletter, “Fed up with shitty design, the sale of our personal data and heaps of unsolicited advertisements, we built a new social network of our own. Berger & Fohr partnered with Paul Budnitz and our friends at Mode Set. That network is now here and it’s called Ello — simple, beautiful & ad-free”.

The UX and front end design is simplified and beautiful, paired back to let the content be hero.

Ello’s Manifesto is a great read…

Your social network is owned by advertisers.

Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.

We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.

We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.

You are not a product.

Ello is still in Beta. It is currently invitation-only, and we are releasing updates and new features every day. Advanced features like bookmarking, reposting, private messaging, enhanced discovery, and native apps are coming soon.

Everybody loves to hate Facebook. That’s what brand new social network Ello is banking on, anyway – and so far, so good. Lured by the promise of exclusivity, thousands of curious punters have scrambled in recent days to get their hands on a ticket to the hottest social club on the internet. Ello is invitation only for now. Each new user is awarded five “invite codes”, which they can give out to friends.If you’d like to read more about Ello, click here.

Also NOT to be missed is the super cool Ello face maker, click here.