APP OF THE DAY: Path – The Personal Network
While everyone and their cat may well already be using Facebook, we’ve all at some point or other longed for a more intimate way to share our social lives on the net. Scaling back Facebook’s mammoth user base by 499,999,950 and allowing just a close nit circle of 50 pals to join comes Path, the Personal Network.
A free iPhone app, the idea is that you’ll be able to openly share anything using Path, safe in the knowledge that only 50 of your most trusted friends will ever be able to see what you’ve been up to.
But why 50?
“We’ve built the personal network model to keep you in control, always,” reads the Path blog.
“We chose 50 based on the research of Oxford Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar, who has long suggested that 150 is the maximum number of social relationships that the human brain can sustain at any given time. Dunbar’s research also shows that personal relationships tend to expand in factors of roughly 3. So while we may have 5 people whom we consider to be our closest friends, and 20 whom we maintain regular contact with, 50 is roughly the outer boundary of our personal networks. These are the people we trust, whom we are building trust with, and whom we consider to be the most important and valued people in our lives.”
No news yet on what happens if you’re lucky enough to have 51 “bestest friends forever”, but if you’re keen to give it a try, you can grab the app from iTunes by clicking here.
