Many find some sort of use for social media. Some people use it to connect with friends, share news or even look at filtered photos of food. The issue for many (with myself included) is balancing usage on the growing list of popular social sites. Usually the social focus lands on one site over the others, so some accounts are left to collect dust. Some sites allow users to post to multiple media sites as well as their own, which can be a big draw. The new app, Path, looks to jump on this idea and unify social media.
Path is a new social media app that is quickly gaining some attention. But is it time to head over to a new social media platform? Photo by Courtland JeffreyThe main premise of Path is to connect you to your family and close friends so you can share with them your personal information like statuses, photos, locations, etc. While this feature is nice (cough, cough, Facebook…), the feature that you would probably find the most useful is that you can connect your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare accounts and share your posts all at once. Path feels like a more in–depth social site; you can show different emotions for posts, use stickers, hold private chats and, since the app only allows for 150 friends, you have to choose your Path friends carefully.
Now, before you instantly go downloading this app, there are some other points of view that you should take into consideration. While it is nice to cover all of your social media bases at once, it can get dull for your friends and followers to see the exact same 140 characters from you, everywhere. Variety in social media keeps people’s attention and Path can easily take that away. Path also does not (to my understanding) have any way to import posts from the other social media sites, so you are stuck looking at just Path posts and need to venture over to the specific media apps to view their activities.
Path is one of those niche social media sources. It offers a unique experience (similar to a miniature version of Facebook) with an enticing sharing feature, but it feels like it is just another social app that people do not need to add to their overwhelming social media diet. I installed it about a week ago and probably won’t be keeping it on my smartphone for much longer. Path is on its way to being something quite interesting and useful, but it is not there yet.
If you have any questions or comments, email me at cejeffre@asu.edu and follow me on Twitter @Court_Jeffrey. Happy Path–ing!
