What has captured more tech press in the last 48 hours and gone from an obscure project out of a small Boulder Colorado design shop and a Vermont bike manufacturer to growing by more than 50,000 new users an hour?

Say hello to Ello.

Ello is an “ad free” social network without the rules of Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ or Twitter. It’s the latest “hot” entrant in the consumer social space. It is also available by invite only right now but it is still growing at a meteoric rate.

Haven’t heard of it yet? You will.

At its current rate of growth, and wide tech media coverage, Ello should be getting national mainstream media airplay within a week.

But why?

Well, first it plays on the always hot topic of privacy, ads and personal control. The site was founded the same week as Facebook’s July reveal of its manipulative newsfeed experiments which they later apologized over.

Then, just last week, Facebook began eliminating people using pseudonyms for profiles sparked primarily by cancelling drag queen accounts.

These incidents combined with ever increasing hyper-personal ad targeting opened the door a little wider than usual for an “anti-facebook” and in walked Ello.

Ello is hardly the first social network to attempt to challenge Facebook and others around user privacy and data. A couple years back Dispora gained its share of media attention with the same basic story but failed to capitalize on the attention. And this could be the fate of Ello too.

The beta interface is called elegant by some but will likely confuse the average user. It is so plain that most Facebook fanatics will not understand it or care enough about its promises on privacy and no ads and bounce right back to their comfortable addictive Facebook feed.

Small businesses owners who get an invitation to Ello will find there’s no harm in at least establishing a presence. We’ve always recommended that every SMB should claim their brand on every possible site. But focusing your marketing efforts on immediately building out a detailed profile might not be the best use of your time until we see if Ello is more of a Hello than a Goodbye.

After the hype dies down, if Ello does happen to carve out a spot in the social landscape, you can count on us to let you know more. But remember, regardless of what social sites you participate on with your business, your social storytelling applies to them all.