The Path from Social -> Personal -> Emotional

The start-up sector of the social media industry is the most telling of social media's future directions. One recent innovation in social media that is telling a lot is Path - an app launched in November, 2010 for smart phones (specifically for the iPhone) that calls itself "the personal network."

The Path app allows users to share photos and 10-second video clips with up to 50 friends. For each post, the user can write only three contextual tags: person, place, and thing - nothing else. If friends wish to respond, they can do so with one of five emoticons. 

Path - Nervous at Home from Path on Vimeo.

The friend maximum is a response to Dunbar's Number, which is a theory that human beings cannot support more than 150 personal relationships at a time. By allowing only 50 friends to access posts, Path hopes to create an intimate network where users can share personal moments with people they actually know and care about. Additionally, according to Wired, Path's emphasis on sharing intimate photo and video memories was inspired by a recent Ted Talk by Daniel Kahneman about the connection between memories and happiness.

In addition to its social research background, according to Mashable, Path has a star-studded founding team, which includes former Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin, Macster co-creator Dustin Mierau, and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning. It also has a solid backing by angel investors - proving its clout in the social media sphere.

So why is Path so telling of social media's future?

Path responds to several emerging trends and issues in social media by creating a new way of sharing, gathering, and processing information. 

Too Many Photos!

Networks like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube allow users to share a (practically) unlimited number of photos and videos with others. While tags and captions help viewers sift through them, we are still inundated by photos and videos we either don't care about or want to care about but can't because they are surrounded by so many others we don't care about (Phew). Path stops that by saying, "Here are photos and videos you will want to see because they come from people you actually know."

Network Overload & Privacy Concerns

The larger networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin grow, the more impersonal they become. Also, the more friends, followers, or connections one has, the greater the chance his or her personal information could be compromised or exposed to unwanted viewers. With too many superficial online "friends" and too little control over what those people see, many social network users have cut down on what they share. How, then, can social media be social when users hold back from each other and heavily monitor their content? 

Path, with its limited close-friend network, is a refuge for the disillusioned social network users who seek safer, more genuine relationships online. 

Postmodern Individualism

More than other social networks, which expand and often overextend relationships, Path attempts to strengthen the relationships one already has using the technology people are already accustomed to. Path is only for smart phones. Each individual posts individual photos with individualized tags to other individuals on their smart phones. It's the closest thing to socializing without talking and without actually interacting with anyone else. And that's perfect for those of us who are so wrapped up in busy schedules that intimate social interaction is hard to come by. 

Don't have one of these phones? Can't sign up for Path.

Collective Memory Loss

The modern young generation has a deteriorating need to remember anything. Information is at our fingertips, so why remember it? Lack of memory can be inconvenient, however, when reflecting on our own lives.

Photographing and/or recording important or interesting moments allows Path users to essentially bookmark their lives for instant recall. Not only for others, but for themselves. 

We are Social and Emotional Creatures!

Humans are fundamentally social and emotional, and Path makes sure to satisfy those impulses. The app displays who views a post and allows other users to react using one of five emoticons – happy, sad, mischievous/wink, shocked/surprised, or love. 

A photo post on Path with all the possible emoticon response options

In this way, Path separates itself yet again from traditional social networks without entirely rejecting users’ expectations. Though users still cannot comment on photos, emoticons serve as a compromise. Because users can react with a range of emoticons, user responses to posted media are more complex than Facebook’s “like” feature for photos and posts. Also, the emoticons fit nicely with Path’s visual aesthetic. Additionally, unlike open-ended comments or “likes”, emoticons allow for a simple measurement of users’ emotions in response to photos and video. If Path gains enough popularity, the app could track its users emotional responses - a potentially valuable insight in the world of social media marketing!

The idea of displaying and/or measuring emotion – an essential part of human interaction – in a social network is new and catching on. Just yesterday, Mashable posted an article on Affectiva, a new commercial technology for monitoring viewers’ emotional responses to video. 

Click here to have your face monitored by Affectiva!

Path may seem simple, but its insight into the human social condition and the trajectory of modern technology is highly sophisticated. Before long, we may actually stop measuring our social network's value by size and instead by the personal connection we have to it. Could Path be the app we need for social network reformation?