With Updated App, Path Hints at a Mature Business Model

With Updated App, Path Hints at a Mature Business Model

By Mike Isaac.

SAN FRANCISCO, California - It's practically a Silicon Valley proverb: Build your user base, and the money will follow. The problem is that if you grow too big, too fast without a monetization plan, you'll end up taking round after round of money from venture capitalists just to keep up, without the means to make any of your own.

Path, the self-proclaimed 'personal' social network, has often looked like it was falling into this trap. As users are limited to 150 connections, traditional advertising has a more difficult time going viral on Path's network than, say, Facebook's or Twitter's. With a new version rolling out to users, however, the fast-growing startup may soon have more revenue on the horizon.

On Thursday, the company introduced Path version 2.1 of its iOS and Android apps. More importantly, Path announced it was opening up its application programming interface to the first major partner to integrate with the network: Nike.

Path's new version offers integration with the Nike+ service, so users can track their daily running routes and make them available for their friends to see and comment on. Path's team stressed that it's an added feature, not an advertising deal per se - and Path CEO Dave Morin says that his company has "no plans for advertising in the short term."

"If we're focused on happiness, traditional advertising goes against that experience," Morin told reporters at Thursday's press event.

In the long term, if or when Path does open itself up to integrating ads into users' streams, Morin says it would be some sort of content-based advertising, rather than the traditional display ads familiar to users of Google or Facebook.

Nike is currently the sole partner, as Path's API is still private. But as the API opens to more potential content partners, this expands the network's ability to provide both new services and more revenue-generating content.

Today, both features and revenue opportunities on Path are relatively limited. Among other services, users can share photos with one another and point to which music tracks they're listening to. Path only takes in very small amounts in revenues from these services: selling photo filters that work with the camera, plus a deal with iTunes which pays Path an undisclosed sum for each track a user posts.

If Path partnered with retailers, credit card companies or location-based deals apps, monitoring your daily activity could yield more advertising opportunities. Say you go for your daily run using the Nike+ feature. The app maps out your route that you take. Integration with a deal-based app could map out relevant shopping possibilities and available discounts on the route for your next run. Imagine planning out your run so that you'll end up at a shop offering a deal on Gatorade with purchase of a PowerBar.

Morin also expressed interest in mobile gaming, a lucrative source of revenues for companies like Facebook and Zynga.

"Obviously games are a big thing on the iPhone right now," Morin said. "Something like half of the iPhone users out there are mobile gamers. If we were to jump into games, it would be in a high-quality way."

Suppose Path were to partner up with Zynga, an obvious choice for mobile gaming. A potential deal could mirror the type that Zynga currently has with Facebook: Users purchase virtual goods through Path to use in Zynga games, while Zynga splits revenue 70/30 with Path.

These are all hypotheticals, of course; in the near future, Path's API will remain private to maintain "quality control." Meanwhile, the company will slowly expand its exclusive partnerships.

Path does have to tread lightly when it comes to sharing data with advertisers. The company is still fresh off a massive privacy scandal, in which Path was caught uploading users' mobile address book data to the company's servers. It has since apologized and deleted all of the collected data, but a slow, careful public relations path (so to speak) is most likely the company's best option.

Meanwhile, Morin and company are working to build up Path's feature set. The 2.1 update includes a music-matching feature that recognizes what tracks are playing in the surrounding environment. (Shazam, anyone?) And Path co-founder Dustin Mierau added a number of enhancements and filter updates to the app's camera feature, further encroaching on Instagram's turf.

Revenue from these services may be minor, too, but it still shows a steady advance toward monetization as well as growth. It's a more secure foundation for a more mature company - one that Path's team hopes users and partners continue to embrace as warmly as investors have.

Nike Fuel Band does it Live Up to the Hype?

It feels like the fitness tracking market couldn't possibly fit any more devices, but Nike is hoping to prove that that is not the case. The new Nike Fuel Band hopes to prove itself the best of the bunch for fitness tracking, and boasts some nice features that mean that it just might be. And if the pre-sale numbers are anything to go by, then this device should sell millions. (The Fuelband sold out in just 8 minutes. So does the device live up to it's prerelease hype? Read on to find out what the reviewers think.

The Nike Fuel Band is a small rubbery band that you wear on your wrist. On the top is a matrix of 100 LED's, which act as the display for the device. Most of the LEDs are light blue, but there is a band of colored ones along the top of the device, used for indicating how close you are to matching your daily goal.

While the device might look like it is rubber all the way through, at its core is a metal frame designed to be durable. This gives the device a nice feel. As said The Verge's Bryan Bishop: "the band feels more like a good watch than a gadget."

The Nike Fuel Band forgoes traditional metrics for burning calories and replaces it with its own: Nike Fuel. It is designed to be a unified measure of all your physical activity throughout the day. Most people seem to see this as an interesting, bold, and possibly brilliant idea, but one that athletes may not appreciate. As said The Verge's Bryan Bishop you're left with "a product that's probably not that interesting for hard-core athletes or the exercise-obsessed, no matter how many times LeBron James appears in the commercial."

Others felt that the metric actually does provide a real advantage to athletes. said Casey Chan of Gizmodo:

"It's a clever idea! As balancing the differences of various activities (sprint, jog, etc) can provide the token to improve overall fitness since you're gunning for the same goal, in this case, a Nikefuel benchmark. Nike believes that life is a sport, every human is an athlete and everything you do should be measured. I'm definitely interested in seeing how much Nikefuel I gain for surfing the internet."

But the Nike Fuel Band does have problems with anything not based on large arm motions. As said Mark Hatchman of PCMag.com, "Nike claims that any aerobic movement-dancing, walking, skipping rope, boxing-is tracked using the three-dimensional accelerometer and converted into its own arbitrary "fuel" metric. (It's doubtful, however, that the band can measure resistance, or activity where the wrist is stationary, such as a pushup or bicycle riding. With the FitBit, such activities must be manually entered.) It's water-resistant, but not waterproof, so don't try swimming."

The Verge's Bryan Bishop said :

"...the fact that the device keys off arm motion does lead to some activities being rewarded more heavily than others. 10 jumping jacks will get you 10 Fuel points, but 10 tough minutes on an elliptical - with consistent, steady hand motion - produced just 150 Fuel points. Riding a stationary bike, with hands locked to the steering grips, resulted in no Fuel earned whatsoever. Nike admits that the FuelBand also doesn't play nice with resistance-based activities like yoga or weight lifting, but to be fair this type of variance is going to be an issue with any wrist-mounted device."

The Fuel Band isn't cheap, at $149.99. And because of the limited release, there are Ebay auctions for the device that are ~$300.00. And the Fuel Band doesn't do many of the things that its competitors can do. Said Bryan Bishop again:

"The FuelBand doesn't monitor your sleeping patterns or serve as an alarm, two of the cooler functions of the Up bracelet, and it doesn't provide GPS functionality like a full-featured sports watch. At $149, there are also quite a few cheaper options out there on the market."

Right now, there is a web app and an iOS app, which the Fuel Band can sync to via bluetooth. The device can stay charged for 4 days, which is fairly long for a device like this.

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Path updated to include Nike+ integration, music matching, camera enhancements

Path updated to include Nike+ integration, music matching, camera enhancements

by Joe Aimonetti.

Summary: Popular mobile journal sharing app Path has been updated, now with the ability to share your runs through Nike+, find and share the music you're listening to, and add cool filters to photos.

Are you a fan of Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Shazam? Nike+?

Would you be interested in a service that essentially combines the functionality of all these mobile apps into one sleek and simple-to-use program? Then perhaps you should give Path a try.

After its most recent update (see my colleague, Paul Sloan's take here), Path could become a major player in the social networking game, expanding its existing 2 million user base. All these enhancements take the brain-child of former Facebook platform manager, angel investor Dave Morin, to a whole new level.

The major integration win for Path comes in the form of its partnership with Nike+. Now, when you want to complete a workout and share with friends, an option to share on Path is at your disposal. Path's integration is more than just posting your times, though. When you start a run, a note is made on Path. If followers add an emoticon (the equivalent of a Facebook "Like"), you will hear a cheer while running.

Mobile social encouragement. Pretty cool.

Of course Facebook and Twitter are longtime staples in the social-sharing world, but Path's unique user interface could prove to be the difference as consumers continue to search for the best way to express and share themselves and their lives.

And what bigger thing is there in many people's lives than music? Path has tackled music sharing by adding the ability to track and tag music you're listening to and share it to your timeline. Path uses Gracenote to obtain information about the tracks you're listening to so you can accurately let your followers in on your musical tastes.

Also included in the Path 2.1 update is new camera functionality including exposure and focus controls and some new effects that you can apply to photos to give them the classic vintage look and feel that have become a staple of iPhoneography.

The features listed above combined with bug fixes should make Path 2.1 a worthy player for people looking to change up their social networking game. Are you a Path user? How does it compare with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? Let me know your opinion in the comments!

About JOE AIMONETTI

Joe is a seasoned Mac veteran with years of experience on the platform. He reports on Macs, iPods, iPhones and anything else Apple sells. He even has worked in Apple retail stores. He's also a creative professional who knows how to use a Mac to get the job done. Joe is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive.

Path Adds API With Nike As First Partner

Startup Path released a new version of its smart journal app today along with a third-party API for other applications to integrate with Path.

The first partner on the platform is Nike with its Nike Plus running app and integration will also be coming with the new Nike Fuel Band.

The integration means that once users connect Nike to Path, Path will auto-post route maps from Nike so that friends can see their runs on Path. When they go for a run using Nike Plus, Path will automatically recognize the run and add it to Path in real-time. Friends can then virtually "cheer" the runner on. The best part about this feature is that when friends cheer the person, the runner hears a cheering sound in his or her headphones while running. The idea is to encourage the person while she's running. Those virtual kudos are also visible on the route map, as if the person was there on the street. Path also automatically adds a point on the map where someone had his or her best pace.

It has been 16 weeks since Path relaunched as a private journal for documenting activities among friends. The company now has 2 million users and half of its users return every month.

The new Path API is still private for now, because Path wants to make sure it integrates quality content on Path. But the company plans to add new partners soon. The 30-person company is starting with health apps but will move to other verticals, said CEO Dave Morin.

"The reason we're starting with a private (API) is to focus on quality," Morin said at a press briefing at the company's San Francisco offices. "We want to make sure every story on the Path feed is quality. We want to make sure that the stories that show up in Path are good stories and a big part of people's days."

The small things are important to Path. Even the act of integrating the two apps is different. The screen is two small circles, a Path circle and a Nike circle. The user drags the two together in a kind of animation.

Other new updates in Path 2.1 include adding "music match," the Shazam-like functionality that recognizes a song that's playing and can post it to Path. Path has also revamped its camera lens features. The camera app also includes a new way of taking photos with focus and exposure adjustments both on the same screen.

In an answer to a question, Morin said the company hasn't seen any real drop-off in users after the privacy issue with contact uploading.

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New iPad adopts simple product naming Steve Jobs brought to Apple in 1997 B

New iPad adopts simple product naming Steve Jobs brought to Apple in 1997 B

By Daniel Eran Dilger.

iPods and iOS devices

When Apple introduced the iPod in 1999, it continued to remain "the new iPod" through several generations before being named the iPod Classic to differentiate it from the architecturally different iPod mini (and its replacement, the iPod nano) as well as the simple iPod shuffle.

Each successive model generation retained the same descriptive product name, without serial numbers or new name suffixes to highlight differences in their chipset or other features. One exception to this rule was the short-lived, premium fourth generation iPod named "iPod Photo" in 2004. It was later renamed "iPod (with color display)," then replaced with the video capable fifth generation "iPod" in 2005, which Apple purposely avoided naming "iPod Video," even as consumers often referred to it as such.

When Apple released iPhone in 2007, it paired it with the new iPod touch. While subsequent generations of iPhone got new names alluding to their new features (iPhone 3G) or updated speed (iPhone 3GS) or new generation names (iPhone 4) and new enhancements (iPhone 4S), iPod touch didn't, instead carrying forward the Mac style product name with a parenthetical reference to its generation or model year introduction.

A primary difference between the iPhone and iPod touch was that Apple continued to sell different generations of the iPhone in different markets or at different price points. While Apple continues to sell the iPhone 3GS, 4 and 4S, it has only ever sold one new iPod touch model. With the iPad, Apple has historically liquidated the previous model year, rather than selling both an old and new model at different prices.

This year, Apple has continued to sell a single iPad 2 while offering a "new iPad," positioning the device somewhere between the naming convention of iPhone and its iPod touch and Macs, which don't get new names and typically don't overlap in sales.

This suggests that Apple may begin naming subsequent new iPhone models as simply the "new iPhone," rather than introducing a new "iPhone 5" or "iPhone 4S Plus."

KIS,S

Such a move would also help to reduce confusion related to the difference between generations of iPhone, generations of Apple's A4/A5/A5X/A6 system on a chip processor, and the branding of wireless technologies that identify themselves as 3G, 3.5G, or various things that claim to be 4G (despite the fact that no deployed wireless networks actually meet the 3GPP standard for being a true "4G" technology).

Another complication is the fact that even among carriers supporting LTE, there is no global consensus on what bands to use. In the US, AT&T and Verizon operate LTE service on different bands, and globally carriers are rolling out the technology on still different bands. Until a single chipset and design can be made to efficiently work across all of them (something that many not happen), Apple is likely to want to avoid confusion with a series of different model names, and instead focus on '"iPhone" as its global brand.

Apple's strong brands related to iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac enable the company to release models consumers can readily identify. The company's entire hardware product lineup fits into a small box on the company's online store page, with each brand clearly differentiated.

That's a big difference between Apple and other smartphone vendors producing new brand names every few months (such as HTC's latest ThunderBolt, Incredible, Rhyme, Rezound among the 51 current models listed on its website; Motorola's Droid 4, Droid Bionic, Droid RAZR among 27 models on its website; and Samsung's Illusion, Stratosphere, Fascinate, Continuum, Galaxy S, Galaxy S II Skyrocket and Galaxy Nexus, just to name a few of the 137 it offers.)

Windows PC makers offer similarly confusing ranges of products reminiscent of Apple in the 90s. Samsung offers a good example of both, with a website that lists not just 137 different phone models and carrier combinations (not including 14 Android tablets and two Windows 7 Tablet PC offerings) but also 37 laptop models grouped into four "series" as well as a Google Chromebook notebook and an all in one PC model. Samsung isn't even a major PC vendor.

RIM also continues to use Performa-style model naming, with BlackBerry Bold models identified as, for example, the 9000, 9650, 9700, 9780, 9900 or 9930 among the 21 models grouped under its six brand names, similar to Nokia's use of numbers on its Lumia Windows Phone 7 model lineup, which includes the 610, 710, 800, 900 and 910.

Other Microsoft licenses are using Android-style naming, with new brands from each vendor (such as the HTC Trophy, Mozart, HD7, Titan and Radar). Microsoft effectively prevents its Windows Phone 7 licensees from offering much diversification on specifications, but the product is now offered under more than two dozen brand names and numbers, despite accounting for very few actual sales globally.

On different carriers or in different countries, each of these model names is subject to change, too (the AT&T Samsung Galaxy S II is essentially the same phone as the T-Mobile Epic 4G Touch, for example, a nod to the ego of carriers at the expense of consumer confusion). This is in stark contrast to Apple's single brand name for the iPhone 4 or iPad on every carrier, even in cases where there were different chipsets and technologies used (such as an AT&T version and Verizon version).

By centering on a single brand name for each major product category it sells, Apple spends much less on advertising and promoting new brands and customers find it easier to find what they're looking for and ask for it by name.

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New iPad adopts simple product naming Steve Jobs brought to Apple in 1997 A

New iPad adopts simple product naming Steve Jobs brought to Apple in 1997 A

By Daniel Eran Dilger.

Apple's latest iPad, originally anticipated to be named iPad 3 or iPad HD, was simply called "the new iPad" during its introduction. This isn't a new change in naming products at the company however; Steve Jobs initiated it 15 years ago when he returned to lead Apple in 1997.

Apple product names in the 80s

Apple's initial mainstream product was the Apple II, introduced in the late 70s and updated in a series of revised models differentiated by a character suffix: first the Apple II+, then the enhanced Apple IIe, the compact Apple IIc, and eventually the 16-bit Apple IIGS, with letters emphasizing its new graphics and sound capabilities.

The ill-fated Apple III and Apple III+ were followed by the Lisa (later rebranded the Macintosh XL), both using the same type of suffix naming convention that was also in common use by many other early computer makers.

The company named its first Macintosh models with character suffix identifiers: an initial update was called the Mac 512Ke (commonly referred to as the Fat Mac for sporting four times the RAM of the original) and the first major redesign was branded Mac Plus, followed by the Mac SE (for system expansion, the first Mac with a slot) and the Macintosh II in 1987 (the year after Jobs left the company to start NeXT Computer).

Names get crazy in the 90s

After continuing this naming system through a series of Mac II models in the late 80s, the company began branching out by delivering new series of Macs, ranging from the Mac LC line (for "low cost color," aimed at education and home buyers) to the low end, nostalgic "Mac Classic" line to the higher end Mac IIx, IIcx, Iici, IIfx, IIsi, IIvi and IIvx.

It then introduced a series of Latin-sounding product lines ranging from the consumer-oriented Performa to the middle of the road Centris and '040 powered, higher end Quadra, with each model getting a Sony-style model number such as the "Quadra 650 AV."

Systems using a PowerPC processor were given four-digit numbers (as opposed to the original three-digit numbers of Macs based on the Motorola 680x0 chips), and often incorporated "Power" in their name (although mobile PowerBooks predated that convention, so they didn't necessarily use a PowerPC chip unless they sported a four-digit model number). A single new machine architecture might be offered under a dozen Performa model numbers, each with slightly different specifications.

Throughout the 1990s, Apple's product naming resulted in a complex, difficult to understand series of overlapping models and model numbers, each representing a different configuration of hard drives and system capacities.

The company's Newton Message Pad and eMate product lines of handheld devices similarly used product numbers to differentiate models, and the company also used the same numbering conventions for peripherals such as its QuickTake cameras and StyleWriter and LaserWriter printers.

Jobs' product naming simplification

When Jobs returned to lead Apple in 1997, he immediately killed the Mac's confusing model number-names and introduced a single desktop model: Power Macintosh G3, paired with a single notebook, the new PowerBook G3, both highlighting the new, third-generation PowerPC chip. Newton devices, printers and cameras were all axed from the company's catalog entirely.

Jobs then introduced the iMac in 1998, followed by the consumer iBook notebook in 1999. Successive models that incorporated a significantly different processor were appended with G4 or G5, but each generation of Apple's Macs were no longer given unique names with each release.

Instead, iMacs and PowerBooks were generally released with an internal naming system that described when they were released (such as "early 2006"), along with an unpublicized architecture name ("iMac4,1"). To the public, a new iMac was simply marketed as the latest iMac.

With the shift to Intel processors announced in 2005, Apple's product names got even simpler, with "the new iMac," "the new Mac mini," and new series of MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Xserve and MacBook Air models, none of which drew attention to the generation of their Intel processor, nor features such as a 64-bit architecture, DisplayPort or Thunderbolt.

Instead, users buying a Mac simply choose the form factor they want, the screen size, and pick between good, better and best packages, or custom order a specific configuration they want. There's no hierarchy of model numbers or sub-brands to navigate through to find the Mac a users wants to buy. Rather than naming products after their specifications, Jobs' Apple named products descriptively (such as "Mac mini") or after the category of people who would be buying them (Pro).

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