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Ello has already indicated that it would layer premium services on top of its free network to accomplish this. In an interview, Budnitz gets more specific. “On the iPhone, everyone wants to add an app and customize it for themselves,” he says. “That’s how Ello will work. It’s meant to be very simple, but people will be able to buy small features for $1 or $2 and change theirs.”

In essence, Ello’s service will be a puzzle that can be rearranged the way you like—for a price.

Ello’s buzz has considerably died down since its sudden popularity in September, mimicking the rapid rise and fall of other new social networks like Path.

Budnitz isn’t concerned. “From where I’m sitting it’s not losing momentum at all,” he says. “This is an invitation-only social network. We even closed invitations for a while and intentionally slowed down growth.

For us, we kind of thought we’d be where we are now six months from now.”

the site still sees on some days 40,000 signups and invite requests per hour

Many of Ello’s features are like this—a little bit fun, a little bit hidden.

There’s definitely a learning curve and a lot of hidden stuff that you get to learn as you go,

Ello will likely remain a network for artists and creative types

A look at the most-followed accounts shows mostly designers.

Today, a user can have fewer than 1,000 followers and still land in the top 100. That kind of following wouldn’t even put you in the top 10,000 on Twitter

Promoted Pin today is being reviewed by a member of the team to ensure that it meets community guidelines and that the quality is high.

Pinterest is working with just a handful of small businesses for the launch of its self-serve offering. That includes companies like custom prints business Artifact Uprising, home cooks content and commerce destination Food52, and clothing brand Vineyard Vines. But the company expects to gradually make the self-serve offering more widely available to small and medium-sized businesses that want to test out the ads platform.

it’s raised a big new $200 million round of funding valuing it at $5 billion. That round was led by SV Angel, and included participation from a number of existing investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Fidelity, A16Z, FirstMark Capital, and Valiant Capital Partners.

Facebook’s paid-advertising options have become more effective recently and that companies should view Facebook as a tool to “help them grow their businesses, not a niche social solution to getting more reach or to make a post go viral.”

But, he says, organic reach is only one of several reasons companies benefit from having a presence on Facebook. Last month, there were more than one billion visits to Facebook pages directly. “Having a presence where you can be discovered still has a ton of value,” he says. “We don’t want them to spend any dollar with us unless it’s doing something spectacular to help them grow their business.”

Businesses used to own their consumer relationships through email or other in-house marketing channels, or to buy them from newspapers, television and other traditional media outlets through ads. “But Yelp and now Facebook are trying to peddle a third model, he says: “renting—in which a business can build a community but never own an audience on a platform.”

Some small-business owners say they have begun to accept Facebook as “a pay-to-play marketing channel” for businesses.

unding was led by Special Situation Funds

The idea behind Izea is that influencers are writing in their own voices and matched with individual brands,

A lot of times, it's not the mega superstars that drive engagement, it's people that fly under the radar that have a very rabid fan base."