

Path — Introducing The Personal Network - ssclafani
http://blog.path.com/post/1576969971/introducing-the-personal-network

======
jamiequint
The production quality here is really really good.

However, I agree with the excellent presentation posted here a while ago 'The
Real Life Social Network' ([http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-
social-networ...](http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-
network-v2)) that the issue isn't number of people I want to share with. The
issue is that the groups of people I want to share content with are completely
separate. There are a number of pictures I would be happy to share with all my
friends but would not want to share with my parents, or pictures that would be
relevant to share with my co-workers but not all my friends. Until that issue
is solved I'll continue to not share as much as I would were I to have more
flexible (and easy to use) permissions.

~~~
shadowsun7
I agree with your reference to the 'Real Life Social Network', and I'd also
point out that keeping your groups separate is a _hard_ problem to solve. To
execute, you have to have something that's easy, simple to use, opaque when
you want it to be (and vice versa), and you have to model the way your groups
see each other (or can they? Should they?). I'm very interested to see who
finally manages to find the solution to that (and what that solution might
possibly look like.)

~~~
stuntgoat
What about a tab for each Path share group indicating which friends you share
photos with? If you want to share photos with "work: medium-good friends" you
can and insure that the "work: ok friends" or "family: mom's side" don't get
the same post. I feel like the hard problem is not to keep groups separate,
but to re-factor existing infrastructure to support separation and making it
'easy' for users.

~~~
Timothee
I feel the hardest part is making it easy for users. Facebook has offered
lists and groups for a long time, and it's fairly easy to post something to
just a specific list. However, I found that the difficult part is the
housekeeping of these different groups.

Even if you take the time to create lists for your different social groups,
these groups will evolve over time, because of new friendships, fights or
whatever; which means that you need to spend time maintaining who belongs to
what group. That will generally not happen.

The other solution is to rely on intelligent systems that manage your groups
(Facebook could do that kind of things based on who interacts with whom, and
what kind of subjects, etc.) or who sees what (Facebook already kind of does
that from the point of view of showing you what you will find interesting, not
what other can or not see at all) but relying completely on systems like that
is difficult and scary, and will still hinder sharing stuff blindly.

~~~
austinchang
things starting/stopping - groups, interests, friends is actually a good thing
and what keeps things interesting.

things coming and going should be a feature not a flaw of the way people
interact online...

------
fabiandesimone
This is quite interesting (and sorry for the long post)

About three years ago I started working on a sharing engine that offers what
Path seems to be offering. Three years later and two startups (built using
that sharing engine) closed, I can share a few thoughts (and a couple of
stories):

 _Sharing Engine:_ We thought sharing was broken. Privacy, permissions,
different media files, social networks all around were making things
complicated for the average user, etc.

We had this situation at home were my sister just had her first son. She was
living in Madrid and my folks back at home in Venezuela.

They wanted updates of their grandson and my sister wanted to send pictures,
videos, etc. about him but there was no “definitive” way to do it.

She wanted the sharing experience to be private (or at least we thought so. In
retrospect I think we assumed she wanted this) and there wasn't a simple way
to do this.

We sat down and came up with this sharing engine that was going to be unique
and was going to allow her (and many like her) to share her sons life (and her
own) with whomever she wanted, have complete control and was going to be
incredibly simple to use. After many brainstorming sessions we finally found
the perfect combination:

Users were allow to create their own sharing contexts (in the first startup
their were called "buckets" and in the second they were called "albums").
These contexts were by invitation only: only the people you gave access to
that context could "interact" with the media inside the context.

These contexts had a set of rules (permissions) that were unchangeable once
the contexts was created: the reasoning here is that if you invite someone to
that context and the person joins, it's doing so based on a certain promise*
Available in every platform: Desktop, web, mobile.

This simple, yet powerful combination gave birth to what I personally think
holds more value that the engine it-self: what I called the “smart news feed”.
This new smart news feed, was smart because it only showed what was really
interesting to me. And between you and me, it was not really smart per-se, it
was just that you only received notifications from the contexts you were a
part of.

This had two mayor benefits:

-My news feed only showed activity (comments, uploads, etc) about the contexts I was a part of.

-I was 100% sure that people, not part of a context would receive notifications of my activities in that specific context.

For example:

I had a context that I shared with my folks. We shared pictures, funny videos,
football news, etc (my dad loves Football: Go Napoli!)

I also had a context that I shared with my wife. The contents of this contexts
were quite different from the one I shared with my folks.

Here is where the newsfeed was important: My folks only got notifications of
my activities in the context we shared but not on those activities I did on
the context I shared with my wife. Is quite simple, yet very powerful.

Of course this engine has a lot of neat stuff, like the ability to share all
types of media you can think of, highly scalable, very fast and so much more.

About our two closed Startups:

On the first one this engine was a part of a bigger app that integrated your
entire online life: mail, contacts, Calendar, RSS, IM, etc. We never
officially launched so I can’t give you to much insight about the idea (the
sharing part at least).

After that, we took the engine and built a Twitter app out of it:
Twitalbums.com

The idea was simple: private sharing on Twitter. No one was doing this and we
thought, heck let’s be the first ones to do it. The engine is built, all we
need to do is connect with Twitter, put it out there and see what happens.

We did and we got some initial traction about 800 users and a
review:[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitalbums_private_coll...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitalbums_private_collaborative_content_sharing_v.php)
, but looking back, a couple of things worked against us:

-Our execution was... meh. I mean, we were so focused on the engineering part, that we forgot about the user experience.

-Nature of the platform: Twitter users want to broadcast and be heard. They don’t want to share privately. It seems obvious now... but you know how it goes.

About Path and Instagr.am

I like this dichotomy, because I have actually thought hard about this two
apps long before they existed.

First let’s say this: mobile is the correct approach. I think this is were you
want to be with either one.

Path: is what I wanted to do with the engine we built.

However, it turns out people are social creatures (go figure!) and being
social outweighs the need for privacy.

Instagr.am: is were I evolved our sharing engine (we went from private by
default, to public by default, making EXTREMELY easy to be make it private).
Instagr.am is going to win on the traction game but loose on the monetization
one.

Could Path win on the monetization game? I think so. Closed groups have some
benefits: You could display HIGHLY targeted advertising to an specific group
You could identify users that get real value out of your service as a group
and charge for use Etc.

However, I think the real value of private sharing (and were the money is) is
in the small and medium business and how a tool like (in this case) Path could
benefit to mobilize and facilitate communications between employees. I think
if the offer is right business will be willing to pay for this (and employees
will have no choice but to use it. Remember, Instagr.am already won the
traction game)

------
peteforde
Would anyone care about this if it wasn't launched by highly visible Facebook
alums?

Quality should be judged on merit, not who made them.

If there's magic here, somebody lift the kimono.

~~~
evansolomon
I don't believe you don't take into account who makes something in judging it,
at least initially. Few things are impressive on day 1, either because they
actually aren't that impressive or because it often takes more than 1 day to
understand an impressive thing. Who makes something is a good way to
understand the thing faster, and I don't think that's the least bit
unreasonable.

------
ajg1977
I wonder how much of their funding they spent on the domain name.

I kind of like the idea, and the world is becoming ripe for a simpler
Facebook, but christ - I can only imagine the difficult conversations about
why I didn't reciprocate when someone 'pathed' me. "Sorry, you're not in my
top 50".

~~~
stoney
The limit of 50 does seem like a bit of an awkward conversation waiting to
happen. Surely _someone_ must have pointed out to the developers that someone
out there has a large close family and a lot of close friends?

I'd also be very worried about the even more difficult conversation: "sorry,
you were in my top 50, but I've bumped you for my new friend Dave"

~~~
daniel_iversen
What do you think people told the Twitter guys about 140 characters? ;)

~~~
gabea
The "Twitter guys" had a reason to make twitter use 140 characters since
twitter initially was built solely for use with SMS and they had to deal with
SMS's 160 character limit. 140 for the tweet and 20 for your twitter handle.
As others have stated 50 is an arbitrary number.

~~~
jasongullickson
_"We chose 50 based on the research of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary
Psychology Robin Dunbar, who has long suggested that 150 is the maximum number
of social relationships that the human brain can sustain at any given time.
Dunbar’s research also shows that personal relationships tend to expand in
factors of roughly 3. So while we may have 5 people whom we consider to be our
closest friends, and 20 whom we maintain regular contact with, 50 is roughly
the outer boundary of our personal networks. These are the people we trust,
whom we are building trust with, and whom we consider to be the most important
and valued people in our lives."_

------
ssclafani
It looks like they scrapped their original idea. ReadWriteWeb reported in
February based on a Google cache of the site before it was locked down that
Path was "a tool that facilitates the creation, sharing and correlation of
lists."

"The site so far is a list of lists. You make a list, give it a name and add
items to it. Then you can see who else has made a list with the same name,
what's on their list and what the most popular items are across all lists with
the same name. Lists are things like "best coffee in San Francisco," or "evil
corporations."

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_peek_at_pathio_th...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/first_peek_at_pathio_the_stealth_startup_from_face.php)

~~~
hiroprot
Somehow I was more excited about the list idea. I thought they'd build a
really solid version of <http://listiki.com/>

Oh well, maybe we haven't seen everything yet.

------
jchonphoenix
So these guys who were big names at facebook leave facebook to found... a
social network?

And the only major difference is that you can only have 50 friends...

~~~
ericflo
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

~~~
smackfu
The number of poor products that quote has been used to justify...

------
kschrader
I wonder if they pushed this out of the door because of the traction that
Instagram is picking up right now. It feels very similar, although not as
refined at this point.

~~~
uptown
I'm surprised they launched it right before Facebook's big email announcement.
Seems like that announcement may overshadow anything else "social" that comes
out today.

------
ScottBurson
Looks interesting. I'm not a social-network user -- I closed my Facebook
account a couple of months ago, and I've never used Twitter -- but this I
could see using.

That could be the bad news: the site might appeal most to those like me who
value our privacy -- and I'm not sure how many of us are left :)

But I'm not an iPhone user either. Currently using a Pre but contemplating a
switch to Android.

~~~
austinchang
The idea of a personal network is a good one but the problem is that there
isn't just 1 personal network but clusters of networks. how do you address the
different type of interaction in a limited network of only 50?

------
fraserharris
For anyone trying to take down Facebook, this presentation (link below) on
real life social networks by Paul Adams (Senior User Experience Research,
Google) is a must consume. A social network that forces you to bin friends
based on groups you create, and forces all interactions in terms of the groups
would be a huge step forward.

[http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-
networ...](http://www.slideshare.net/padday/the-real-life-social-network-v2)

------
ImperatorLunae
Here's what will kill this:

When a social network starts, its membership is sparse. Not everyone uses it,
and the odds that your best friends will all pick up and use it off the bat
are improbable. Therefore, in the lonely wasteland of a newly colonized social
network, people tend to make friends with acquaintances. Of course, you're not
super good friends with these people, but it would be rude to deny their
requests as well.

What do you do when your real friends finally show up? Frump your
acquaintances? Sure, you weren't really good friends with these people, but
you don't want to isolate yourself from them either.
Frumping/defriending/depathing actively demonstrates to them that the budding
friendship you could have had is not there. People in real life move on, but
they also get back in touch too. Having to squeeze back into someone's "path"
is unnatural. Sure, it happens in real life, but to have to actively mimic
that on a website--what if you are overestimating the value another person
sees in you? That could have disastrous consequences. I don't maintain 500+
friendships at once, but I wouldn't want to tell 500 people "sorry, we're not
friendly enough to be pathed."

Path really seems to have a flawed premise. Considering the hype, they've
probably got quite a big chunk of funding too. I see it degenerating into a
popularity contest--social groups have an ebb and flow, but they rarely have
official declarations. What happens when people wander apart? Do you declare,
"our friendship is not important enough to be in my path anymore?" I could
never imagine doing that to anyone. What if you have forty relatives you'd
like to keep in touch with? Can you only have ten friends?

------
joshuamerrill
I absolutely love both the concept and execution of this. I hope it offers
some of the intimacy that Facebook eschews.

My only gripe? 50 is too many "friends." I doubt many of us interact
meaningfully with 50 people in a given week, let alone in a given day.

I also wonder how much more users would be willing to share if 50 became 10.

------
bl4k
So another photo sharing app but with some personal network theory wrapped
around it in its limitations?

These guys have been working on this for a long time, and atm the app looks
like a prototype. In the interim instagram and a dozen other services went
out, launched, and gained traction.

You can talk about the network theory stuff but most users aren't interested
in that

I hate being Mr Negative, I am just a bit underwhelmed considering the hype -
these guys have already been covered a lot in the national mainstream press

------
joshu
The photo wars are heating up: Dailybooth, instagram, picplz, path, etc...
exciting!

(I am an investor in both dailybooth and picplz)

~~~
brlewis
Do you think picplz can beat instagram to having an API? I'd like to give this
user an alternative: <http://ourdoings.com/burgerlife/>

------
j_baker
This is possibly the worst name for an iPhone app one could choose. It's like
on page three of the app store when I search for "path".

------
dotBen
Overall I like the concept, but my main gripe is that if you don't have an
iPhone the web-based service is useless.

I can't add any friends even if I know their url - I can only hope they add
me. I'd have thought letting people add friends by visiting their url on the
website would be a reasonable feature of even the most basic MVP iteration.

As it stands the web site is useless to non-iPhone users and so I don't see
why they bothered to launch that aspect.

~~~
bl4k
I agree. I couldn't work out how to add people - no import from Google or
Facebook or whatever. While I do believe in release early, these guys may have
blown it only because of how much attention they have (or had).

~~~
dotBen
So after making my comment, I went and wrote this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1907504>

------
Jabbles
Their login page is https by default! Well, that's one thing better than
facebook...

------
daniel_iversen
This app not available in the Australian iTunes store... I wonder why? Is it
only available in the US? Is this short term? (i imagine so)

------
cabalamat
The rationale for the 50 person limit is:

> _Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and
> family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how
> personal._

But as others have pointed out, 50 is just an arbitrary number. There might be
more than 50 people someone is happy to see a photo, or there might be less.
For risque photos, someone may only want a subset of their friends to see it.
A better system would be to allow users to have multiple overlapping subsets
of visibility, with one being the default.

------
zalew
_Practically all of us carry a camera phone,_

not all of us an Apple one. should I feel sorry I'm not your target or you
should be sorry because you restrict a social network to one platform?

~~~
ibrow
> not all of us an Apple one

Which is probably why they are looking for an Android developer:
<http://twitter.com/path/status/26431179050>

~~~
pclark
and blackberry

~~~
arethuza
But no mention of Windows Mobile 7....

~~~
pclark
too nascent i imagine

------
soamv
The feedback feature of conspicuously showing who's seen a photo is
interesting. It prevents people from lurking -- you're always visible to the
people who's content you're seeing. This seems, IMO, more interesting than the
50 friends limit.

I wonder if it will make people think twice about opening a photo, knowing
that that action will be logged publicly and conspicuously. I also wonder if
it'll come with an on-off switch analogous to facebook and linkedin's profile
views feedback.

------
prawn
I wondered recently on HN if there was an idea around a social network that
limited the number of friends/contacts you made:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1855890>

One respondent suggested that this would limit growth. If a cap of 50 doesn't
quite limit growth, I wonder if it's different enough to Facebook that it
might have any success?

------
mrcharles
Unfortunately their system doesn't appear to accept strong passwords. When
trying to sign up with a 12 character password with symbols, while I get a
green checkbox, submitting causes me to get a "Requires password" dialog.

edit: This is from within the iPhone app.

------
chrisbroadfoot
Unfortunate that they restricted their initial launch to iPhone users only.

I want to try it, but all I see is a blank page. I suspect I'll have forgotten
entirely about Path by the time they launch apps for other mobile platforms
(or a web interface!)

~~~
cmelbye
Web interface: <http://path.com/>

~~~
chrisbroadfoot
It's not useful on its own.

------
jordanbrown
Instagram you win. The use case for path is if you don't have any self control
for who you decide comes into your life on other networks. (Facebook, twitter,
instagram, etc)

Props to a strong team though.

------
robgough
For whatever reason, this doesn't seem to be available in the UK app store.

------
erikstarck
57 comments and not one mentions Dunbar numbers. Surprising, I must say.

------
ojilles
It's a bit unhandy to not use the build in contact finder. Theirs doesn't
filter well.

Also, when I need to fill out my phone number, just let me pick "me" from my
contact list, easier.

------
irq
Kinda weird they don't have a direct link to their iOS app from their web
site, isn't it?

~~~
cmelbye
It's the huge "Available on the App Store" button.

------
michaelfeathers
So 50 is the new 140?

------
schammy
While I agree with some of you that this probably wouldn't get nearly as much
attention if there was an unknown team/investors behind it, I still find all
of the negativity surrounding startups these days on HN and other sites like
TechCrunch to be annoying and totally counter-productive. If you think
something is stupid or lame, fine - whatever. But do you really need to tell
us all about it? Why do you think any of us care? My guess is that most of
these people are probably failed entrepreneurs and the only thing that makes
them feel better is wishing the same failure upon others trying to make it.

As for myself, I am not particularly interested in this service and have no
plans to use it, but that doesn't mean it's lame or that there's no market for
it or that it can't be a success.

~~~
itg
It would be one thing if the negativity was constructive criticism but it
seems to be extremely whiny and angry in tone.

~~~
schammy
Yes, that's what I meant. Constructive criticism is fine and is much
appreciated by most parties, but most of the comments I read (this story is a
perfect example) are just proclaiming that something is stupid and will
certainly fail.

------
binaryfinery
That's a lot of text, I thought. Yet I ended up reading all of it.
Interesting. Looks pretty. Can I be arsed? Will I not care about the feelings
of friend 51? Good timing after that great TEDxSD talk.

------
zackattack
dave morin's company. he was previously head of developer platform at
facebook. GREAT guy!

------
svnv
Their layout instantly made me think of OhLife: <http://ohlife.com>

