Following on from last weeks look at Flipboard, this week we’re turning our attention to Path; the personal social network.
Credit: Path.com
Path is an iPhone/Android based social network with a difference; it’s about sharing your information only with those nearest and dearest. Resultantly, the cap on the number of friends a user may share with is a rather modest 50. While ultimately how privately you reveal your life on the more major social networks is up to you, on the whole users tend to share with more people than they would perhaps like – this is the root of Path’s appeal.
Path is presented as a series of “moments” where you can share photos, movies, thoughts, location, what song you’re listening to, and more. Each of these moments builds your life’s “Path”. If this all sounds very familiar that’s because it is. This is no bad thing however as Path isn’t about doing something new, it’s about doing what you would normally do, but not telling the whole world about it. What’s more, the presentation is truly beautiful.
A stunning interface based around what is dubbed the ‘Chooser’ makes navigating Path a joy. See the video to get a real feel for how the app works.
Path – Introducing Path 2 from Path on Vimeo.
As well as looking gorgeous, Path has some ace features. If you move town, Path will automatically update your new location (if you allow it) and it also boasts some great photo filters similar to those found on instagram.
Should you choose, you can share your updates to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare. Personally, I feel this defies the point behind Path, and whilst ultimately you could theoretically use it as a client for updating, it’s far too limited to become a replacement.
Path is a great app – the ethos behind it, it’s slick implementation and gorgeous looks are all definite perks, however I cannot help but feel that it would benefit strongly from having an online aspect also. If each user could have a unique URL which lead to an HTML version of their Path, it would allow it to be shared with those close who are unlikely to have a smart phone (Grandparents and such)
Is adopting a new personal social network something that appeals to you or would you rather just vet your currently existing sites? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page
Twitter is attempting to provide a uniform experience of it’s service, regardless of device limitations and quality of signal, by updating it’s mobile version of the site.
