The Path

"Facebook and Twitter and even Instagram can be so cluttered that finding those moments of intimacy requires hunting. Worse, all are so very brand-heavy now. All of them have been inundated by enterprises that desperately want our attention; that want to pull us away from the network itself to read a story, or watch a video, or look at an image, or play a game. They don't want us here, they want us there."

 

 

Yeah, the world needs another social network like it needs another hole in the head. And while I like the Google+ design for the most part, Facebook almost immediately stole many of the good ideas from it (not implemented as well IMO). And the fact is, Facebook has the inertia, like VHS over Beta, and most of the time that’s all you need to win.

 

But let me say that there is a new one out there…well, fall of last year, but it just got a huge interface redesign, that blows all of them away. Seriously, it’s that good.

 

It’s called Path, and I’m quite sure it won’t catch on because as I said I think Facebook has the market wrapped up. At least for now. But if people really cared about exceptional beauty in both function and design, Path would take over tomorrow.

 

Imagine Facebook. Now remove all the crap. All of it: Farmville, third-party apps, and Ads. Remove page updates from the rock bands you liked in college and from political organizations.

 

Now jettison most of your friends, you can keep your BFFs, up to 150 of them. That’s all. Let’s face it. If you know more than 150 people in real life, you don’t know them very well.

 

Now add a few things, borrowed from other social networks, the best features out there:

 

Add the great photo snapping, editing, and sharing properties of Instagram. Add the real-time aspect of Twitter…everything you do is projected to your friends immediately and everything auto updates. If you so allow, your location will update automatically as you move around. That may sound like a security nightmare but it isn’t because Path is different.

 

Now wrap it, mobile-only, in the best user interface design yet seen in a social app. This interface is so buttery smooth, so soft and quiet and animated, that it takes only one glance to know this is how things should be done. It has personality, but gets out of your way.

 

Now add a cool photo of yourself at the top and you’re good to go.

 

Path operates on the principle of, oddly enough, the “path”, where each user has a path. That new timeline feature of Facebook? Yeah, like that but without the clutter…which is why it’s cool because on Path, a person’s path is like a view of their life.

 

The 150 friend limit of Path is paramount. Because you can only friend people you really know, and because Path’s security settings are easy and rock solid, you are much safer sharing more of your life. And when someone visits your “path”, Path does the smart thing and posts that event to your path too. Instead of a complex security structure that makes you set individual privacy ratings for who can view what, Path just tells you who actually did view your path.

 

The little design touches pop out all over: you tell it when you are going to sleep and it won’t bother you with updates…and your friends see that you are sleeping too. Instead of “likes”, you get emoticons.

 

I am not doing this justice, and as I said, I highly doubt Path will supplant Facebook anytime soon.

 

I just think that if the universe was fair, it would.

 

Maybe this guy explains it better:

 

"You fire it up, and see nothing but core updates from the people you care about. Photos, the songs they're listening to, the places they are. As you scroll through a timeline, you can stop and blow up each person's moment, or update, full screen. You can comment on it, or leave a little emoticon (including a frown, which frees you up from having to "like" bad news) in lieu of a comment.

 

You can also go into someone's Path—which is a lot like a Facebook timeline, but without all the third-party junk and ads. There's a real-time aspect to it, fostered by ambient awareness and subtle animations—like the way it automatically posts your location when you move from one place to another, or the ticking of seconds after you post an update, or the way friends' comments appear the instant they are posted. Everything is embedded in the app itself. Nothing takes you away, off-site. And it's all (for now at least) deeply personal. There tend to be no messages and no agendas. Scrolling through Path feels like diving into someone's life.

 

...

 

Path isn't cluttered with self-promotional links or YouTube videos of sneezing cats. You're not going to see plug in games...you're not going to see the glurge and hurge of illiterate rage and hash tag garbage..there's no call to re-post this as your status..no obnoxious comments from your hyper-political third-cousin twice removed. There's no tiresome, turgid competition for the best status updates as one-liners, or increasingly drunken series of 25 photos from last night's party...

 

In its place is private conversation. A few photos. Maybe a video. A location. A very small look at your friends' lives. A glimpse into the things they aren't sharing elsewhere. It is purely personal. And the thing is, I never realized that I needed that. But I do."

 

If you want to try it, friend me....um, if I know you that is :)