
Path for iOS 7 - jamesjyu
http://blog.path.com/post/76264291404/path-for-ios-7
======
imd23
What a waste of time. Their employees and exec team should really pivot into
whatever field they want and with that UX and know how they wil nail it.

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ulfw
Besides looking nice (though everything is just too small to read), what else
does Path offer? A Facebook without the user base? Sure. But I fail to see the
advantage in that. It feels like "it’s a custom-designed, one-of-a-kind
bespoke app Morin had built for his assistant and him to communicate and
collaborate through"
([http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/...](http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/a-cunt-
and-his-iphone))

~~~
matznerd
I always thought that custom app sounded kind of cool

~~~
ulfw
Man, it's not just custom. It's freakin' BESPOKE!!

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gailees
I thought Path was dead already?

~~~
callmeed
I think they just duped some indonesian vcs into giving them $25 last month*
... so, they'll at least be around until they burn through that

*[http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/11/with-indonesias-leading-ro...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/11/with-indonesias-leading-round-path-raises-25m-for-private-social-network/)

~~~
hhandoko
The way it was perceived in Indonesia, is that Path had been bought by the
Bakrie group.

I think in the bigger scheme of things, the $25M is a 'marketing' money well
spent. Reason being, Aburizal Bakrie looks to run for the presidential
election and this investment provided him with a very positive image.

~~~
ulfw
A positive image to invest in Bay Area companies with products that are going
nowhere, rather than investing in his own people in his own country???

~~~
hhandoko
Yes, believe it or not.

Path's brand image is still relatively intact in Indonesia, as compared to USA
(where the privacy concerns has tarnished it).

It's all to do with one's status, and Indonesian election is more or less a
popularity contest. Of course, you'd get more points in investing in a
household name (i.e. Path), especially being a 'Western' company.

The effect is similar to Erick Thohir's [1] stake in Intermilan, D.C. United,
and 76ers. He's probably more popular than the President right now ;)

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erick_Thohir](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erick_Thohir)

~~~
ulfw
Wow. Really interesting. And really sad, if you think about it. But okay...

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Spiritus
It's a beautiful app, too bad its userbase is non-existant (at least among my
friends).

~~~
balladeer
So, the privacy concerns, contact stealing and phone spamming rumours were
all, well, rumours?

I mean there's a reason behind their non-existent user base. I stopped using
it when all my friends got an email from them. All! Even my professors, and
company managers, my MD. Then they received those emails all over again.

~~~
Spiritus
Really? I guess I dodged that bullet then!

~~~
balladeer
> FTC fines maker of Path app $800,000 for privacy violations

First result on goolging "path privacy"

~~~
k-mcgrady
Wasn't this also the time that it became clear lots of apps (including Twitter
and Foursquare) were doing the same thing - Path was the only one to get in
trouble for it though and the others silently removed those 'features' from
their apps.

~~~
balladeer
No that was not the time and it was certainly not the _same thing_.

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ycskyspeak
They had pretty major controversies. They were burning through an enormous
amount of money on marketing and then silently inviting friends on Facebook
controversy.

Wonder where they will go from here.

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saiko-chriskun
Really wish I had more friends on here.

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jbrooksuk
The team should just be hired by another company in a similar space! Their app
looks nice, functions well, but... is used by no-one. It's a shame, but after
the privacy issues you can easily see why.

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numair
A lot of people wonder who is using Path, or if it is even being used. Most of
these people live in Western societies. If you go into places where young
women are not so keen on expressing themselves in public -- where, for
example, it might not even be allowed -- Path is doing exceptionally well.
These aren't exactly places in the world where people don't have money,
either.

Now, based on the sort of completely ignorant comments I have seen on Hacker
News as of late regarding people in non-Western societies, and regarding
women, I would expect most of you to know nothing about these things. Do
yourselves a favor and please _shut the fuck up_ when you don't actually know
anything about a particular subject, and base all of your supposed "knowledge"
on sensationalist tech journalism and gossip sites.

Sorry kids, just because you made an account on a social network site and know
how to code an app does NOT mean you understand ANYTHING about how the social
network space works. And none of you know anything about Dave Morin, so you
should really avoid making fools of yourselves by talking about him. There's a
lot that bothers me about Dave, such as his high number of douchey friends
(and I tell him this everytime I see him), but he is far from incompetent and
stupid. Most of you newcomers to our industry don't even know that Dave was
responsible for Facebook's Groups feature, which he designed as a means for
getting his employer at the time (a little company called Apple) on board as
Facebook's first advertiser. He isn't a wannabe who made a social network to
be trendy.

I wish reading HN comments these days didn't make me so angry. Ugh. Sorry for
those of you who sense my negativity.

~~~
zmitri
Hey Numair, I agree with you on the negativity. It's not good for anyone. Path
is exquisitely designed and the product team are top notch.

That being said, websites like App Annie provide reasonably detailed metrics
on downloads and popularity in iOS and Android stores and what you've just
said doesn't really tie out. Besides Indonesia, it's really not doing well.

Important interactions can happen on almost any social network, Path isn't
inherently bad, but that doesn't justify it being valued or hyped like it is.
There is A LOT of money at play here - and a large portion of that money comes
from things like retirement funds, pension funds, etc.

I think that annoys a lot of technologists who work hard and get overlooked -
you know, those who believe that meritocracy rules in SV instead of
connections.

~~~
numair
Hey Dmitri -- I agree with you, the stats don't add up... But my own
(completely external, third-party) study of the social dynamics of the usage
of the app paint a different picture. I should note that I had written off the
app myself until very recently, when this interesting trend started to kick
off. Although I don't have access to any inside data, and the charts don't
seem to show what's going on, I was one of the first 5 people on Path, and I
have one of the only usernames on the service (n), so my account tends to feel
the effects of usage patterns before they become macro-patterns. What I'm
seeing doesn't paint a picture of a dead network, just one that doesn't seem
to have any usage in any Western countries.

Once again, I'll note that this is different from what I saw 18 months ago. If
you had talked to me at that time, I would have said Dave was screwed. And if
he wastes his time focusing in the Western market (such as is evidenced by
screenshots of users based in San Francisco), it might still be the case. Path
is no longer a Western network, and that's totally okay -- it was never a
Western network anyway. I didn't even use the product during the whole spam
debacle, which I would blame on Dave's poor judgement in hiring douchey
employees in decision-making roles (I think there's a Mother Jones article
somewhere that might allude to what I'm talking about). I'm guessing a lot of
the new users of Path didn't even know about the app during that time (again,
keep in mind that the demographic waves for smartphone usage mean that there
are entirely new groups of users who have zero knowledge of what went on a few
years ago).

Edit: Also, there is nothing non-meritocratic about Path/Dave raising money.
He was in the game when most of you thought it was a joke. And unlike a lot of
people who have made money, he actually did something for it. If you're bitter
about this, the issues are your own.

~~~
zmitri
Interesting. We'll have to see how it plays out.

I know you are deeply interested in social apps, and have invaluable insight
into their workings from early days at Facebook and personal in-depth
research. I'm pretty sure you were username n on an app I built too...

But in my experience, despite having very active and passionate users, the
lowest form of interaction always wins out on a free social service. Lack of
interactions means user churn - no matter how good or important the
interactions that take place actually are.

In that sense, social apps themselves are just vessels for human interaction -
and great human interaction happens all over the place whether an app exists
or not. Your goal as a venture backed social app is to focus those
interactions and try to monetize them.

Is Path going to be one of those handful of "lucky" networks where those
interactions happen in large enough numbers to make it viable financially?
Personally I wouldn't bet on it.

