My views on Path

Have you guys heard about Path? It’s a personal networking site. Well, those of you in COM 125 class would probably have heard of it!



Being only able to have up to 50 friends as a user, it is indeed an “anti-social” networking site! For people who are not yet aware of Path, you might be thinking that such a site would probably be created by a group of people who are anti-Facebook or something. But no! Path was actually created by Dave Morin, one of Facebook’s early architects. He was the one who helped to build Facebook Connect and the Facebook Platform, but left the company early last year to start his own venture – Path.

Basically, Path is created to allow exclusivity to the close ones of everybody. Since only a maximum of 50 friends is allowed per user, only people who are truly close enough are entitled to fall under his/her friend list in Path. This way, users would be able to openly share photos without being afraid that there would be “people out there” seeing and judging them. Path’s intentions were to allow its users to be themselves and share their lives with their loved ones.

However, I personally do foresee a couple of problems with this personal networking site.

Firstly, just imagine yourself to be a subscriber of Path. One fine day you realized that an old friend of yours had just deleted you from his/ her friends list in Path. How would you feel? You may still see him/her as a close buddy, but it really seem that he/she has got better friends at that point of time. Moreover, it is easy to realize that someone has deleted you. (You only have a maximum of 50 friends.) In such cases, Path amplifies the sad truth, and digs it in.

Everyone has probably faced situations whereby someone whom you deem merely as an acquaintance thinks of you as his best friend. Being the nice person as you are, you just let him be and do not want to declare what you think of him straight in his face. Such cases would very possibly lead to the second point I am going to make about the Path.

Imagine the situation when such a person requests to be in your friends list in Path. As much as you don’t want to hurt his feelings and ego, you already have 47 friends out of the maximum of 50 and you would really want to leave the 3 slots for people who are truly worthy.

How would you want to reject him then?

“Sorry, but I only have 3 slots left and I really do have 3 other very close friends whom I think should take those slots.”

Or

“Oh you are a step too late! 3 friends just asked me before you! Sorry.”

Seriously??
Well, no matter what you say in the example above, it can be bluntly interpreted as “Sorry to tell you, but you are not within by top 50.”

Boohoo, and he walks away. You have just successfully hurt someone’s ego.

Now do you see the fact that Path may really put you in extremely difficult positions?

Last but not least, think again about what Facebook can do for you when it comes to exclusivity. Do you vaguely remember that on the top right hand corner there’s a “account” button, where you can change your settings from who can see your friends list to who can see certain albums of yours.

And oh yes! There’s an option called “custom”.