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Why I Love Path

posted on June 21, 2012

I’ve been involved in social media since before the term even existed. I’ve appreciated and leveraged the power of connecting with people from around the globe since I first dialed a modem into a BBS and started talking to strangers.

The online world and social media has been very good to me. I make a good living consulting, speaking and writing and all of that came about from years of hard work and the access I’ve been given by being connected

If you haven’t heard of Path, it is an app (iPhone & Android) that allows you to share thoughts, locations, photos and the music you are listening to. You can comment on other people’s posts and instead of a simple like or +1, you can choose from several emotions to give any post. All this sounds familiar right?

Every social network allows you to do pretty much all of those things. But, Path has one very significant difference that currently is forcing a different user behavior within it’s walls. It only allows you to have 150 friends.

Because of this little limitation, people are very choosy about who they connect and share with. I know my “rule” is that if I haven’t had a real sit down conversation with you and I wouldn’t let you stay over at my house, then there is no way you are going to be connected with me here.

This close knit feature causes a certain circle of trust to be created by the people you interact with. The conversations that happen there and what is shared are things you’d never see said publicly on other networks because they’d come with too much baggage.

It gets a little interesting though when you comment on someone you are connected with and then other people you don’t know comment as well. That is always a little trippy.

This morning it solidified for me when someone really put themselves out there. Sharing intimate details of something horrible that happened to them. It was a conversation that you use to see happen online more, but now rarely happens.

You know why else I love it? Because there is zero pitching or pimping going on. There is no A List and people could care less what number you have on any other site.

People are talking about their lives, kids and struggles rather than sharing links, tips and everything else that happens on the web at large. People are being people and I love that.

It is going to be interesting to see where Path goes. Right now it is very young and pure and I love it. As it grows and needs to make money, what will happen to it? I’d pay to keep it like it is right now. I hope that is the business model they are opting for because if advertising or marketing of any sort creeps in, then it becomes just another social network rather than my morning coffee with friends that it serves as right now.

 

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Categories: Technology
  • http://stevegarfield.com Steve Garfield

    Thanks for explaining. It’s all about people. My kind of site.

    I just tried my log in again. Didn’t work. Then tried to recover my email. Didn’t work. I was an early adopter, and I think my account is screwed up from when they first changed systems over. I hope they can help me now

    • http://raulcolon.net/ Raul Colon

      Steve, I think C.C. is making me go back to see what I missed when I tried using it!

  • http://twitter.com/imelda +imelda

    I reactivated my account after reading this and have already started using it.

  • http://twitter.com/mskonfa1990 Kerwin

    Never heard of it. Will check it out. Thx.

  • http://twitter.com/TedRubin Ted Rubin

    I like Path too CC. I started using it at the urging of John Andrews (@Katadhin) and he is a huge advocate. It has become a go to for our team at Collective Bias to keep up with each other’s work meetings/travel, in a personal way, and with events in our personal lives as simple as what we are doing with our families and ourselves. Also, since it operates as a publishing platform to other mediums (Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, and Tumblr) i allows you at the same time to push out your posts when and i applicable and therefore not requiring the use of yet another post. So I most often do publish it out, but what makes it unique and so valuable/personal to me is that I know those in my close Path Family will most always see what I post there… it is catch as catch can on the other networks.

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  • http://twitter.com/asmith1106 Andy Smith

    The only downside to Path, as I see it, is that it’s so tight knit that you *need* to spread it word-of-mouth to get most of your friends on there. I think I’m “friends” with 3 people, and only 2 actively use it. I find myself using it for about 2 weeks everytime there is an update, and then deleting it. Wash rinse repeat. I really wish it would catch on, or have some sort of browser app to get a slightly bigger audience…