Mobile social network Path broke down social network walls in the summer of 2012 by giving new users the option to import their Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram data.
Now, Path is playing up that feature as the best way to cull all your social updates (minus those from Twitter) into one big archive. Starting Thursday, that archive is searchable, making for a very unique and handy way to recall your memories. “We want people to basically use us as their social search engine,
Path is slowly rolling out an update that brings a search page to its iOS and Android apps. When you tap over to the page, you’ll get a list of suggestions and the most popular places, friends and keywords you tag in your social updates.
Once you start typing a keyword, Path will instantly bring up a list of relevant posts based on time, date, location, type of location (such as Chinese restaurant or football stadium), which friends you tagged and the text you used. For example, if you search for “summer,” Path will pull up photos, posts and locations that you have added between June and August. Type “watching the baseball game” and you’ll get memories of when you checked into the ballpark, or invited friends over to watch a game.
You’ll also see a Nearby button in the latest version of the app. If you tap it, you’ll see all the Path updates you and your friends have posted near your current location. The company bills it as an easy way to find the coffee shops close by that your friends recommend, or recall all the memories you’ve shared from your apartment. It would also be helpful when you’re traveling to find that tucked-away sushi place in NYC when you can’t remember the name.
With Nearby and search, you can find anything you’ve shared to Path and Facebook, Instagram and Foursquare (assuming you’ve imported that data). That gives Path a huge leg up, because you can’t search for any past activity on those social networks.
Path really needs that advantage to get bigger. Launched in 2010, the social network hasn’t taken off nearly as well as its competitors. Part of the reason why is that Path limits the number of people you can add as friends and family to 150.
Despite that limit turning some people off, as of December 2012 Path has grown to 5 million users. That’s nowhere near Facebook’s billion, or Instagram’s 100 million. But by giving social networkers access to almost their entire social archive in one searchable place, Path might be poised to catch up soon.
Path Wants to Become Your Social Search Engine
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Path Wants to Become Your Social Search Engine
