Path photo-sharing social network for iPhone launches

From Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster) and Dave Morin (ex-Facebook) comes a new social network platform. Launched just last night in Apple’s App Store, Path creates (and limits you) to a social network of 50 close friends. You can share your personal moments in the form of photos, tag places, things and people, and also capture where you were at the time geographically. Since your network is limited to a max of 50 friends, the creators of Path think that you’ll not only share more often, but you’ll share more personal “Paths” that you normally wouldn’t throw up on Facebook or Twitter. The problem with Path, at least in our limited use of the application and network, is that with no external sharing, and a very, very limited group of friends, we’re not sure how useful the application is and will be. For instance, most of the stuff I want to share is public anyway (Twitpics, Facebook uploads), and the private photos I don’t want to share publicly, well, they are private. In theory, it would be great if there was a public by default option in Path, something that would let you use Path in conjunction with Twitter and Facebook, and a private option which would then limit your photo’s exposure to just your internal Path network of friends. In a world where updating Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, Instagram, and everything else we’re on constantly, Path at this point seems too limited to be useful. Hopefully that will change, though. Let us know if you have given it a go and what your thoughts are — it’s available now if you want to give a try.

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