This article was published on December 30, 2010

In 2010: The Wondrous and Weird Ways People Used Path for Photo Sharing


In 2010: The Wondrous and Weird Ways People Used Path for Photo Sharing

Oh the tangled web we weave! We’ve got best friends, work friends, good friends, family, family friends, lovers, Faecbook friends and strangers. How do we engage appropriately and walk quietly between them?

Path, the new photo service that launched on the scene this year differentiated itself by offering a degree of privacy in a more controlled way than other photo sharing services like Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitpic, etc. Path limits your sharing to 50 people, so it’s an app for you to exclusively share photos with a curated list. I like it for many of the same reasons I limit the amount of friends I have on Foursquare versus the more liberal constraints I put on Facebook and Twitter. There are some social networks that are great to use, just not with everyone. My current location and pictures of what I’m doing are two aspects of my life I’d like to try and keep relatively personal, which is why Path is a bright idea.

Since Path launched in mid-November, it’s garnered quite a bit of attention and raised some good questions about how and with whom we share information. Considering the app’s unique nature, we wanted to know how people have been using it, and we found some equally unique answers.

1. OooLaLa. “I really think that photos on services like Path are this generation’s love notes. Just a quick ‘I’m thinking of you, I miss you. I wish you were here,'” says Morgan Brown, the Director of Social Media for ScoreBig.com. A large number of Path users use the service to share photos with their significant other that they don’t necessarily want to publish to the rest of the world. This works particularly well for long distance lovers who want to share little moments of their day.

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2. Family Photo Albums. If you can get mom and dad on board, Path is great for posting cheesy, look at me, it’s your pumpkin! photos that you wouldn’t post to Facebook in a million years.

3. TV Spotting. Michael S. Galpert, one of the co-founders of Aviary, a popular free suite of photo-editing tools, uses Path to capture TV shows. Why? “It’s a personal moment that I’m logging since I dont watch TV often,” he says. “I really am excited by Path’s mission and have faith that the team will execute the vision of creating a personal network.”

4. Food photography. In April, The New York Times wrote about the rising trend of food photo diaries. Foodspotting then capitalized on this, so it’s no surprise that a large number of users (mostly high school girls) use Path as a food log to share what they’re eating with fellow dieting pals.

5. Sticker Collecting. Through a friend, I learned about a group of American guy friends who live in Argentina and are obsessed with sticker collecting. They use Path to share photos of sticker collection with their amigos.

6. Beard-Spotting. Enough said. 

Last week, Path added 10 second video sharing, and I can only imagine the stories I’ll hear about from the more eccentric folks in my life. And just a personal gripe, Path needs a new logo.

What are ways you’ve heard of people using Path? Please share!

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