Even I remember when Facebook was cool because it was only for college students (I was in high school, so I really got that feeling of the coolness that I was so sadly denied). People liked Facebook because it wasn’t full of people like its competitor, MySpace. You had networks, so you only had to connect with people whom you wanted to connect with. Even if you weren’t connected as “friends,” you were connected through the network.
This made it easy to find people who you actually know or may know in the future as opposed to random people all over the Internet trying to be your friend. It was intimate, and people liked that from a social network.
This lasted for about two years, and then in 2006 the site was opened up to the world. As we now know, this did not scare people away from Facebook and the site went on to become one of the most successful websites in history.
Nevertheless, as the popularity of the site continues to rise, a new social networking site is bringing back the idea of intimate—Path.
What Makes Path Unique
Path is actually not a social networking site like Facebook, but simply an iPhone and Android app that has gotten some attention. In so many words, the app is a place where you can share what is going on in your life with your friends and family.
Path has several notable features:
- Path does not allow you to have more than 150 friends. The forces you to connect with people you trust.
- Path puts an emphasis on photos. You can easily take pictures on your iPhone/Android and then send them out to your friends via Path. One of my favorite features: You will be able to see which of your friends have viewed the photo once it’s sent.
- It has an extremely easy to use and attractive interface.
- It offers photo editing tools to help you create professional looking photos to send to your friends and family.
The app was created in November 2010 and was re-launched about one year later with the name Path 2. Path was originally just a place to share photos, but you are now encouraged to share other aspects of your life. According to Business Insider, the app grew from 10k users to 300k users in just 19 days.
The app was created by big names such as Napster founder Shawn Fanning and former Facebook employee Dave Morin, and is only expected to grow. There is still a place for a large social network like Facebook, but Path is surely making its way onto the scene.
So is it the small friend count that has people excited, and is this intimacy the path Facebook had envisioned? The emphasis on photos? The fact that it is a mobile app? Let us know your thoughts!
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Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to merchant services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including VoIP phone systems to small businesses and entrepreneurs for a lead generation website, Resource Nation. |
