UmeNow vows to kill Facebook, dismisses Google+

UmeNow is a brand new social network that isn’t satisfied just competing with the likes of Facebook and Google+. In fact, UmeNow has declared it will destroy Facebook’s lead in the social networking market and has dismissed Google+ as a competitor in the first place. The new service is calling itself “the first and only ad-free social communication service in the world that is totally focused on privacy.”

UmeNow was founded by a former single mom who has been very vocal about online privacy. She has been even more outspoken against Facebook: “We will kill off the Facebook data eating monster,” Castillo-Bach said in a statement. To make her point, she’s calling UmeNow’s marketing campaign “Facebook is Trash, National Privacy Celebration.” The above video, which appears to be part of this anti-Facebook push, depicts a heroine (representing UmeNow) defending a person who is being followed by some sort of stalker (representing Facebook).

UmeNow has a $6.00 monthly subscription fee (you can sign up for a one-month free trial), which gives you the following features:

• No ads.
• No tracking and No data mining.
• No selling of personal information.
• All third party apps banned.
• Anonymous posting allowed.
• Protection from privacy violations by “free” sites.

“Our service is all about privacy. Facebook is a professional data collector. Google is the mothership of all data collectors. It has nothing on us. They’re not even in our league. Let’s not forget, Google chief Eric Schmidt told the world straight up that Google+ is not even a social network. It’s an ‘identity verification’ service. Anyone still think these giants really care about privacy? We’ve designed the perfect anti-Facebook service. We give you everything they won’t while still making it easy and simple to connect with friends. Because we have no ads, we could care less about your private information or collecting data on you. Our only focus is to give you the power to connect and share without risk. Our belief is that most people crave privacy and resent Facebook for limiting their access to it,” Castillo-Bach said in a statement.

Facebook and Google have definitely had their fair share of privacy issues, and competitors are always a good thing. That being said, I’m just not sure UmeNow is taking the right approach here: attacking a competitor right from the get-go isn’t the best approach.

If you want to keep up with UmeNow, you can follow the company on Twitter. I wonder why they don’t have equivalent accounts on Facebook and Google+?

See also:

• Facebook starts rolling out facial recognition feature worldwide
• EU to probe Facebook over facial recognition feature
• Germany: Facebook facial recognition feature violates privacy laws
• Google+: Eric Schmidt wants your real name or nothing at all
• Germany: Facebook Like button violates privacy laws

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Instagram CEO: we’re not afraid of Facebook

Photo-sharing startup Instagram has just six employees and isn’t even a year old, but it has already been adopted by 8 million users. Earlier this week, we learned Facebook is rumored to be entering Instagram’s turf by adding photo filters for its 750 million users. Despite the fact that Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with the most popular mobile app on the planet and the biggest repository of photos on the Internet, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom isn’t worried.

“I understand why someone like Facebook, where photos are core to their experience, would have things like filters,” Systrom told the Guardian. “But the core experience is so different. We use asymmetric follows like Twitter, which is a really big differentiating point. My friends network doesn’t necessarily take the best photos. The major reason why Instagram works is that you can follow anyone out there and start following their photos immediately. It’s more of a press-cycle thing: it’s been sensationalised beyond the reality of what the situation is.”

In short, Systrom believes adding filters makes sense for Facebook, but that the social networking giant will not directly compete with Instagram. His company’s free iPhone app lets you modify photos by applying filters to photos and then share them with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and other social services. Facebook’s own apps will of course still be limited to just Facebook, Systrom points out.

Facebook reportedly tried to acquire Instagram over the summer, but because the deal didn’t go through, Palo Alto started working on its own series of photo filters. The new feature has been supposedly ready for some time, but Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked for more filters to be created and added before release. Facebook is expected to introduce almost a dozen photo filters, including some that are similar to Instagram’s old-style camera lenses and grainy film, as well as new styles of filters to set itself apart from other photo apps.

See also:

• Rumor: Facebook taking on Instagram with photo filters
• Facebook announces easier, better, faster, cleaner Photos
• Quick trick: get the old Facebook Photo Viewer back
• Unveiled: Facebook’s photo sharing app for iPhone
• Court: tagging Facebook photos without permission is okay
• Why has Facebook moved Videos under Photos?

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