Path and The Internet's New Makeover
By Becky Lang
I’m skeptical about Path. Not because people don’t want yet another site they can use to waste time and stalk one another. This allows them to do just that, with a design that looks a hell of a lot nicer than Twitter, and makes it easier to use photos too. No, I’m skeptical because it seems sort of … lame.
For example, the CEO, Dave Morin, didn’t exactly come off as a “trend-setter” in his interview with Wired magazine.
Morin’s canonical example is sharing with his favored fifty the simple fact that he may be imbibing a hot mocha. “My friends know how much I love mochas,” he says. “So my friends are happy for me.”
Dear Dave,
Your friends are not happy for you because you are drinking a hot mocha. They don’t care.
That’s exactly the kind of update that makes me unfollow someone on Twitter. If he doesn’t understand what to share, should he be creating a whole new sharing platform? Plus, the whole attitude seems a bit precious. Their demo video shows a guy constantly posting updates of what his self-conscious-looking girlfriend is doing – drinking red wine, running on a beach, and other cliches. It might succeed, but I just feel this eery conservatism running under everything, like it wants to go back to “precious moments” with “cherished friends” and get away from Facebook’s “Be Who You Are/ Even the Crappy Stuff/ Find People to Date Here!” message.
What I think it does signify is a demand for designed social media. No longer will we deal with ugly interfaces and crappy fonts just to read what our friends are doing. Now apps like Flipboard extract the text, add unity to the aesthetic and repackage it with flashy photo angles and pleasant typography. I feel like Path is basically doing that for Twitter, but with less text and some schmaltzy gimmick about getting back to your closest friends.
What do you think?
Is Path the next Twitter?