When Path first came out, I was frankly, kind of excited to try it out. I thought with Path's sleek UX/UI, the 150 friend limit being inspired by actual psychology research, and how it was "branded" to not be the next Facebook, but to run in unison with users' existing networks, that this was something that was going to explode.
They pretty much ruined their chances of that happening. It never ceases to amaze me that developers/companies think that they can spam users to increase traction. Users know when they are being spammed which leaves an extremely bitter taste in user's mouths.
"Twitter’s userbase skews more toward early adopters who might be interested in Path than Facebook users."
This might be true, but I think people are going to remember this. Maybe it would work, because I could see Path just re-branding into a more intimate version of twitter, but only time will tell. For the most part, I think Path shot themselves in the foot pretty fucking well.
Most companies resort to spam because their growth just isn't happening. Seems more like path is getting desperate as its early hype has long since faded.
They've had incredibly strong growth since the release of Path 3.0 (in Path growth terms that is). They've been growing at 1 million users a week recently. They were also moving consistently into the top grossing apps in the app store.
I agree that spam can be used by companies sometimes in desperation, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence this was the case. Of course, we have no idea what really happened behind the scenes.
It's easier to get friends to sign-up for a service when they receive an email saying you've shared something with them, and linking to the app-download page.
That's what was alleged to have happened with blasting invites to people's entire contact list against their will.
With that said, from a mathematical standpoint it's difficult to see how this could be a widespread thing. If everybody that joins Path had this happen, it'd eventually become a massive problem where everybody with a phone would be receiving these texts (think six degrees of Kevin Bacon) - so I suppose it's possible this isn't happening to all users.
They have definitely been struggling and they will likely see the same churn they've had in the past. If you look at their app charts on App Annie or a similar service you can see it.
They actually started with a 50 friend limit. The problem was when they had it at this, most active users had less then 20 friends they followed with Path...
So they upped it to 150, and now they are seeing users in the 50 range they originally wanted.
Not always though. I know of a messaging app that has spammed the hell out of my friends. The trick is that it will ask for contact info and then automatically send SMS to all of them asking to install it. Message goes something like, "Hi, I am using <app name> to message for free. Get it from <website>."
Since it looks like it was sent from a friend, it has seem huge growth, at least in my friend circle.
They pretty much ruined their chances of that happening. It never ceases to amaze me that developers/companies think that they can spam users to increase traction. Users know when they are being spammed which leaves an extremely bitter taste in user's mouths.
"Twitter’s userbase skews more toward early adopters who might be interested in Path than Facebook users." This might be true, but I think people are going to remember this. Maybe it would work, because I could see Path just re-branding into a more intimate version of twitter, but only time will tell. For the most part, I think Path shot themselves in the foot pretty fucking well.