These days, everybody loves Path. Tech connoisseurs and casual users alike have given the latest Path mostly positive reviews. Path 2 is definitely one of the most beautiful apps of 2011!

A little more than a year ago, Path was quite a different app. Path, which is founded by Dave Morin, ex-Facebook executive (co-inventor of Platform and Connect on Facebook) and Shawn Fanning (creator of Napster), differentiated itself from the prevailing conception of social networks by being ultra private. Today, Path is a marvelously designed app encapsulating the symbiosis of personal-public (with personal being the default). Path is one of the first high-profile apps that address privacy within the social networking context. Now, let’s look at some of the key moments of Path product evolution.

A Personal Network

Path 1.0 was launched on November 15, 2010. At its core, Path is a social photo sharing app. However, the app positioned itself as a personal network. You don’t follow or add friends on Path. Instead, you share moments (photos/videos) with your friend. If she accepts it, your moments will appear on her Path stream.

It is designed for users to share stuff with a small circle of friends. User can only add up to 50 friends. Why 50? Path explained:

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.

Path 1.0 was already good. The tap photo to expand vertically was an especially graceful feature. Posting photo on Path was pleasantly fast and easy. However, I disliked the idea of rigidly categorizing each posting to People, Place or Thing. And the use of relative dates (i.e. 23 days ago) rather than absolute dates (i.e. Dec 21 2010) on each photo made it hard to quickly recall when exactly the photo was taken. Then, many disliked Path including Om Malik of GigaOM.

Path 1.0 version features include:

• Capture and share “moments” (or photos) with up to 50 close friends and family.
• Tag each moment as people, place, or thing.
• Explore your friends’ moments on a map.
• See who has viewed the photos.
• Tap to horizontally expand photos.

Moments in the Stream

Share a Moment in Places

Video of Path 1.0

On Becoming More Social Friendly

In the ensuing months, Path introduced various enhancements and features on its app. Notably, in Path version 1.5, released on April 15, 2011, users can finally share photos and videos on Facebook Wall. Previously, photos can only be shared to friends and family on Path. Path 1.5 also introduced lenses for users to stylized photos and videos. Activity function was introduced to enhance greater visibility of friends’ reactions to your shared moments.

Path 1.5 version features include:

• Activity: Seeing how your friends respond to you.
• FriendRank: Guessing your top friends by analyzing your Facebook interactions.
• Lenses: Free and premium lenses to style photos and videos in real time.
• Share: Able to post photos and videos on Facebook Wall.

Private / Public Share Switch

Style your Moments with Lenses

Disruptive Path

After version 1.5 release and unimpressive uptake, the Path team went back to the drawing board and asked “Okay, what are people really using Path to do?” For the next six months, the team re-imagined Path.

On November 29, 2011, Path 2.0 was unveiled. The latest iteration is a total makeover of Path. It is now a smart journal. The app now comes with an expanded sharing capability. Users can now share status updates on popular social networks namely, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Tumblr.

Path has evolved from a personal network for photo / video sharing to become a social diary. You can now log your social activities and thoughts, in the forms of photo, video, text, song, and location check-ins on Path. Friends’ list also expanded from 50 to 150 (150 is the commonly used value of Dunbar’s number). Despite the makeover, privacy remains the bedrock of Path.

The Swiss-Army Knife of Your Online Social Life

Path launched With app in June 07 2011, which enables users to share who they are with, what they doing on Twitter. The With feature is now embedded into Path 2.

Other “old” features like photo-taking, lenses, weather (appearing on status updates, and awake-sleep postings) and Activity are still available on Path 2.0.

Path 2.0 is a successful release. Users are now sharing an average of 12 moments per second and Path is “seeing 30x the number of daily active users, going from 10K to 300K in two and a half weeks.” (Source: TechCrunch)

Path 2.0 version features include:

• Design: A totally transformed user interface.
• Share Path stories on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
• Post Check-ins on Path and also, Foursquare.
• Tell your friends what are you listening to right now.
• Post status updates.
• Increased friends count from 50 to 150.
• Photos: All photos are now in full-view mode (no longer tap-to-reveal-all).

Profile Cover on Path

An Entry in Path Journal

Status Updates Pop-up

Video on Path 2.0

Evolutionary Path from a Personal Network to a Smart Journal originally appeared on GreyReview.com on December 28, 2011.

Facebook acquired a Malaysian startup in 2010. Facebook is the only social web company with a development team in Malaysia.

Interested to join the 800 million users social networking giant? Apply here.

Facebook Software Engineering Job in Malaysia originally appeared on GreyReview.com on October 11, 2011.

Facebook now has over 800 million users worldwide, with 168 million are from Asia. In Quarter 3 this year, Facebook added 16.8 million new users in Asia (compared to 19.5 million in Quarter 2 2011). So far this year, the social network has added some 56 million new users; it started the year with 111 million Asian users. Its latest quarter-on-quarter growth rate is 11%. However, the rate has been somewhat slowing since end of 2010 – from 24% in Quarter 4 2010 to 17% Q1’11 to 15% Q2’11 to 11% Q3’11.

1. 57% of Facebook users in Asia can be found in the Southeast Asia region.
2. Internet users in India continue to embrace Facebook. As of end of Quarter 3 this year, India has a total of 36.4 million Facebook users, which is 4 million less than Indonesia. India will very soon surpass Indonesia to become the top Facebook country in Asia (and third-largest in the world).
3. Thailand surpassed Malaysia to become the 4th largest Facebook nation in Asia.
4. Users growth in Malaysia continues to stuck at single-digit. And Taiwan is challenging Malaysia for No. 5 in the list.
5. Facebook users in Japan continue to show impressive growth rate at 26%. In Quarter 2, users population grew by 33%. On January 01 this year, there were 1.8 million Facebook users in Japan. By the end of Quarter 3, total users jumped to 4.8 million.
6. Vietnamese Facebook users grew by 51% in Quarter 3 2011 and will soon replace Singapore in 11th rank.

How accurate are these estimations? Read here.

Facebook in Asia: Latest Stats on Total Users by Country [Quarter 3 2011] originally appeared on GreyReview.com on October 1, 2011.

The new Friendster was launched on June 28 this year, with a focus on delivering more Asia-centric gaming contents. At the same time, it aims to enable games publishers and developers to tap into the vibrant Asian gaming markets. As part of the relaunch, Friendster unveiled a new logo and moved its business operations from the U.S. to Asia (operates mainly from three Asian countries namely in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore).

Since the relaunch, the pioneering social network Friendster is showing positive signs of rejuvenation. So far, the social network has attracted over half a million new users and now includes over 40 premium games and hundreds of free-to-play games and applications. More interestingly, the relaunch has breathed life into its Monthly Active Users and Daily Active Users, which have increased by 50%, to date. Other interesting latest stats:

• More than 90% of the new users are now based in Asia.
• Nearly half of the new users regularly playing between one to five games in the last 30 days.
• Top 30% of these users typically spend more than 45 mins on Friendster during the last 30 days.
• More than 10% of the users have purchased virtual credits in Friendster to enhance their gaming experiences.

Friendster’s Chief Executive Officer Ganesh Kumar Bangah said: “Social gaming is rapidly gaining momentum in Asia. The early results attest to the fact that social gaming is proving to be creating deeper engagements and interactions for these young Asian users.”

The Road Ahead

Bangah further explained that the service continues to be developed and additional features are regularly being added in. Friendster has already added in Facebook Connect, which allows users to login to Friendster using their Facebook accounts. Last week, the new site allow users to select Simplified Chinese as their main interface. Popular gaming features such as chat and forums are expected to be introduced in the coming weeks. Though social games are free to play on the social network, exclusive in-game items can to be purchased via Friendster’s virtual currency, Friendster Coins.

In addition, Friendster has also introduced a free wireless Internet services (WiFi hotspots) at popular outlets such as Starbucks and Papa John’s Pizza across Malaysia.

Judging from the impressive uptake of Google+, the traction Friendster is getting the Asian region and the rapid growth of social entertainment site IMVU (just to name a few), there are still vast opportunities for new, innovative breeds of social networks to thrive in today’s Age of Facebook. Many new ones like Unthink and Lift are gearing up to enter the social networking space with their innovations. Collectively, these players may well shape the future of social networking in the post-Facebook era.

Friendster Growth Gaining Traction After Relaunch in Asia originally appeared on GreyReview.com on September 12, 2011.

Many global brands such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola maintain both global and local Facebook Pages. For instance, the global version of McDonald’s Page and the local ones like McDonald’s Malaysia and McDonald’s Singapore.

Levi’s adopts a consolidated approach, whereby it maintains only www.facebook.com/levis as its Facebook presence. No local Pages. To enable delivery of relevance contents, the company creates a globally consolidated platform to manage the Page. Local Levi’s teams access the platform to post updates and these updates are geo-tagged. On Facebook Page, it is set to display the tagged updates based on Fans’ locations (via IP-detection). I’m assuming such implementation requires customizations on Facebook end.

While consolidating the management of its Facebook Page, Levi’s is still able to deliver highly engaging localized contents. This is one of the best setup of Facebook Page I’ve seen.

Levi’s Facebook Page, as seen by Malaysian Fans

UPDATES: Levi’s transitioned to the globally consolidated platform in early July 2011. Also, Levi’s did work closely with Facebook for this implementation.

Levi’s Facebook Page: Globalized Platform, Localized Updates originally appeared on GreyReview.com on August 17, 2011.

Previously, users have to use third-party photo upload apps like Twitpic, Twitgoo, yfrog and many others. Now, users can directly upload image on Twitter.com interface. Images are hosted on Photobucket and appear as links – “pic.twitter.com/…”. The maximum size of each image is 3MB. Twitter will remove Exif data of the uploaded photo to address privacy concerns.

There will be a gallery soon where your followers can see all the images you’ve shared on Twitter, including those posted via services such as Twitgoo and Instagram.

Image Posted via Twitter Image Sharing

Twitter is delivering 350 billion tweets a day and millions are sharing pictures. Twitter is rushing to tap into the rising popular of photo sharing, particularly on mobile. In coming weeks, users no longer need third-party services to post images on Twitter mobile app.

The creation of Twitter experience ultimately involves a total control of user experience and assimilation of features (previously offered by third-party services). During its early days, it was hard for Twitter to figure out what work, what doesn’t, what’s promising. By adopting the platform strategy, it can use the ecosystem of third-party services as the company’s R&D labs. Based on the various ‘experimentation’ in the ecosystem, Twitter assimilate the successful and useful features, either through acquisition i.e. Summize (search) and Bagcheck (lists) or integration i.e. auto URL shortener.

The high concentration of innovation in the ecosystem are seeping through the membranes of corporate Twitter. This leads to the extinction of some services within the ecosystem. As long as Twitter continues to grow its user base, the ecosystem will rejuvenate by attracting new breeds of services. Symbiosis, virtually.

Twitter’s Image Sharing Service, Yet Another Nail in Third-Party Services’ Coffin originally appeared on GreyReview.com on August 10, 2011.

Roughly 90% of Google+ users are from outside the US. In the Asia region, the percentage of global Google+ population is around 6%.

1. Google+ has now more than 500,000 users in Asia.
2. Google’s other social network Orkut used to attract the Indian population in large numbers. Now, the Internet users in India are crazy about Google+. They constitutes more than half of the Google+ users in Asia. Globally, India comes in second after the US, in terms of total users. It is worth to note that India is also fast embracing Facebook. In this latest report, India registered 28% growth rate in Quarter 2 2011 and currently behind Indonesia, in term of total Facebook users.
3. About 78% of Asian Google+ users come from the top 5 countries – India, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan.

How these figures are derived? FindPeopleOnPlus Directory provides total users breakdown, by country. Currently, the Directory indexes over 4 million users. Based on the figures available on the website, the percentage of each country is calculated. The ‘official’ figure we got on Google+ total users is 10 million, although comScore already estimated 20 million users. To be conservative, I have used “10 million users” to calculate the number of users of each Asian country, based on the country percentage. It is assumed that the country percentage remains constant with the increase of total users.

Google+ in Asia: More than 500,000 Users and India Goes Google+ Crazy originally appeared on GreyReview.com on July 27, 2011.

• JetBlue Airways, US-based low-cost carrier, with over 494k fans.
• Air France, touted the European airline with the highest number of fans on Facebook, with over 368k fans.
• Malaysia Airlines, the national carrier of Malaysia, with over 311k fans.
• Lufthansa, the German carrier, with over 208k fans.
• Onur Air, the Turkish airline, with over 193k fans.
• American Airlines, the world’s fourth-largest airline, with over 175k fans.
• Firefly Airlines, budget airline based in Malaysia, with over 149k fans.
• Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong-based airline, with over 104k fans.
• Garuda Indonesia, the national carrier of Indonesia, with over 100k fans.

The Runway to 1 Million

AirAsia started to leverage Facebook towards the end of 2008 and began to actively promote the Page in April 2009. By early 2009, its Page already has over 13,000 fans. Then, in the age of pre-Vanity URL, fans accessed the Page via URL www.new.facebook.com/pages/AirAsia/18801397386.

AirAsia Facebook Page circa 2009

On December 09 2009, AirAsia became the first airline in the world to obtain over 100,000 Likes on Facebook. By September 15 2010, total fans on its Facebook Page exceeded 500,000 and reached 800,000 on December 29 2010.

By last Friday (May 27, 2011), Facebook Page of AirAsia exceed the 1 MILLION fans mark.

• It took AirAsia roughly 12 months to reach 100,000 fans.
• ..8.5 months to increase fivefold from 100,000 to 500,000.
• ..8.5 months to double from 500,000 to 1,000,000.

AirAsia exceed 1 Million Fans

Here’s a peek at some of the metrics of the AirAsia’s Facebook Page:

• Average daily Likes: 1,500 to 2,000 fans
• Average daily active users: 150,000 fans
• Average Wall posts per day: 60 – 80 posts (reaching over 600 posts a day during promotion / sales)
• Average Page views a day: 5,000 to 8,000 (over 250,000 views a day during promotion / sales)

According to Karen Chan, Interactive Marketing Manager of AirAsia, the success of AirAsia on Facebook can be attributed to strong commitment and support from the top management, combined with diligent, enthusiastic efforts of its social media team.

AirAsia Facebook Page circa 2011

AirAsia also has country-centric Facebook Pages to enable more localized engagements:

• Indonesia
• Thailand
• Australia
• India
• Taiwan
• Hong Kong
• France
• Singapore
• United Kingdom
• Philippines
• New Zealand

The Most Liked Asian Airline on Facebook, Surpasses 1 Million Fans mark originally appeared on GreyReview.com on June 1, 2011.

Empty Facebook Wall

No Photos Too

I logged out and tried to re-login. Then, I found out that my account “is temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance.” Pretty sure this downtime is related to my missing Wall feeds, Photos and Notes.

I also found out that not every Facebook account is affected by this problem. Is yours affected?

This is What it Looks Like when Your Facebook Wall is Empty originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 26, 2011.

The button is gone now; it only appeared for a few minutes and quite surely an accidental exposure. (And unfortunately, I didn’t manage to screenshot it.)

Location of the Shorten button

Back in June last year, Twitter outlined its direction: “It should be easy for people to share shortened links from the Tweet box on Twitter.com.” Shorten button is a step in that direction. I wish the URL shortener can behave like Tweetdeck’s, where URL is automatically shortened. But I assume such implementation will put extra burden on its servers.

Anyway, it’s about time for the appearance of the Shorten button. It makes a whole lot sense, especially for regular Twitter web users like myself.

Twitter may soon introduce a Shorten button originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 21, 2011.

Social networking giant Facebook was caught playing dirty. It is revealed by Don Lyons that Facebook have engaged top PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, to plant negative news about Google. Facebook confirmed this and stated the following reasons for the engagement:

First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.

For the past week, Burson-Marsteller has been trying to get top media outlets to publish negative news about Google Gmail feature called Social Circles. According to this article on USA Today:

Pushed by two high-profile media figures — former CNBC news anchor Jim Goldman and former political columnist John Mercurio, both of whom recently joined Burson — the whisper campaign illustrates how privacy has become a lightning-rod issue. Goldman pitched the Social Circle issue as a huge privacy breach to Google users and an important story for consumers.

Now, we know that both Burson Goldman and Mercurio of Burson were on a mission to smear campaign against Google. Busted!

One can only speculate the threat level Facebook assigns to Google’s social ambitions. For the past months, Google has been hard at work weaving its social strategies by making acquisitions and realigned its organizations (among others), to decisively exploit the commercial upside of today’s social web.

Facebook is dumb if they didn’t exploit the weaknesses of its competitors. But it is doubly dumb if its stealthy dirty play was busted. Information wants to be free, especially in the social web, after all.

Facebook’s strategy for global domination: Shame Google originally appeared on GreyReview.com on May 12, 2011.