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Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

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Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#21

Post by potatolicious »

stevewilber wrote: post #15

Did Path destroy itself with questionable ethics[1] or is there really no way to compete with Facebook anymore? [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/07/path-uploads-your-iphones-a...

Neither? The address book debacle was a big deal for a little while, but the bad press faded quickly.

I also don't think Facebook's position is unchallengeable. After all, Facebook wasn't the first social network, and it looks like the youth today aren't using Facebook nearly as much as older generations, preferring newer apps like Snapchat.

In all likelihood Path destroyed itself by being a not-very-good Facebook competitor. This says little about the feasibility of toppling Facebook.

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#22

Post by prawn »

Steko wrote: post #2

Path laid off 13 staffers today, axing 20 percent of its workforce... Path founder and CEO Dave Morin, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday, has not responded to requests for comment. Cmon Techcrunch, you should know that Path dude never answers his phone, it puts him on defense.

Did they call his day phone or his night phone?

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#23

Post by yapcguy »

amirmc wrote: post #6
Steko wrote: post #2

Path laid off 13 staffers today, axing 20 percent of its workforce... Path founder and CEO Dave Morin, who celebrated his 33rd birthday yesterday, has not responded to requests for comment. Cmon Techcrunch, you should know that Path dude never answers his phone, it puts him on defense.

Some context for those who don't know the reference. > "I don’t use a ring of any kind on my phone. This is so that I am always on offense and never defense." [1] [1] http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/my-phone/2013/03/dave-mori...

I bet Dave would take a call from Marissa Mayer.

Yahoo are pretty good at paying over the odds for mutton dressed as lamb.

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#24

Post by yapcguy »

sniddy wrote: post #3

"The spokesperson said that Path currently has 20 million users" Has Path ever released a data point other than total number of registered users?

Translation: Path stole 20 million e-mail addresses from iOS and Android address books and spammed them.

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#26

Post by lnanek2 »

auctiontheory wrote: post #25

I cannot tell from their website what this company does. (Other than that it might be a Facebook clone.)

That's basically what is. A Facebook clone focusing on mobile. They limit your number of friends and have a better mobile experience by doing things like putting things accessible from fewer screens, because mobile users hate multi-screen flows, etc..

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#27

Post by gummadi »

6thSigma wrote: post #11

To people who use Path - why do you use it over Facebook?

Facebook for me is just an address book of all my contacts. I never share anything personal there due to the number of privacy settings I need to hop through to make sure I shared with the right people.

Path is just a curated set of close friends with whom I feel free to share anything. Also when it came out Path mobile app is far better than Facebook.

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#28

Post by w1ntermute »

nashequilibrium wrote: post #10
amirmc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some context for those who don't know the reference. > "I don’t use a ring of any kind on my phone. This is so that I am always on offense and never defense." [1] [1] http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/my-phone/2013/03/dave-mori...

lol.... that honestly made me laugh. I never read the interview before but will make use of that line sometime. Regarding path, they need to boost numbers, so started exploiting peoples address books, when this worked they raised more money but those users where spammed and probably just deleted the app. The only thing i hear about path is the design, if you did a frequency distribution of word usage in path articles…

Here's a great breakdown of the interview: http://jesuschristsiliconvalley.tumblr.com/post/46539276780/...

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#29

Post by sneak »

perishabledave wrote: post #9
jfb wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Path particularly well-regarded?

Overlooking their privacy issues, the app was well done. The experience felt fresh when the app first came out. A few things I thought were particularly neat: the circular menu for posting statuses, the polished timeline, and the drawer (which to my knowledge they were the first to do).

And then they:

- silently stole your contacts, a move so shady it prompted Apple to quickly push an OS update allowing a per-app contacts access permission, then

- used the phone numbers of your contacts to send them completely false text messages saying you'd shared (unspecified) things with them on Path in an effort to get them to sign up (even when you had done no such thing), then

- leaked your location even when you had location services disabled for Path, then

- started effectively begging for change (subscriptions) every third screen.

Good riddance.

Re: Path Axes 20 Percent Of Staff In A ‘Realigning Of The Company’

#30

Post by capkutay »

I think this is interesting because this may represent a pullback in the social/mobile consumer space from an investment standpoint. Path is a VC darling given that it raised over $40 million from the likes of KPCB (a firm that also mentioned a direction change[0]). Anyone talking about a SV bubble should consider that some companies with tremendous momentum are scaling back a little bit. It could be a healthy pull back.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540362

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