Path is a San Fransisco-based startup that believes in 'personal' networking and allows you to privately share photos with 50 closest people in your life.  

An iPhone application for those who wish to share their daily life with 50 or 'less' friends via photos and locations. Path strongly believes in Dunbar's Number, a theory according to which a person can maintain a stable social relationship with an average of 150 friends, out of which only 5 are considered to be our closest friends, 20 are those with whom are constantly in touch with and roughly 50 fall in our circle of 'trust'. 

"No following, no friending...just sharing with the people that matter the most" says the website. 

Dave Morin, co-founder of Path and ex-Facebook and Apple employee has created a place where "personal network doesn't replace your existing social networks - it augments them." and ensures that "Path is a place where you can be yourself." Shawn Fanning, creator of Napster is the other co-founder of Path.

Path lets you:

Capture images from your smart phone, tag these photos with names of people, place and thing and then share these images with the closest people in your life. Their 'See' feature shows you as to which of your friends view your images in real-time, their 'explore' feature lets you view special moments of your friends on a map of the world and promises more visualizations in the future. 

Apart from '150 friends' theory Dave observed that people have loads of photographs in their mobile phones which are't used much and just remain there. But it is these photographs that give a great insight into a person's life and in order to provide a platform where one can share these images with people very close to them Dave decided to launch Path. 

"If you look at how these networks are grown they start out really high-quality" says Dave further adding "and as more and more people join, it becomes hard to find people you care about. With Path, you have to be friends with them in real world in order for them to pop up in your screen."

Although this application does not let you share these images on other social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, but Dave does plan to add this interface because if people want to be more social he doesn't want to stop those people. 

But the question is that with so many social networking sites and their easy-to-use mobile versions does Path even stand a chance? While researching people's reaction to this latest application we noticed that they aren't too thrilled about it, specially with the fact that they can add only 50 friends, and more over Path doesn't even allow your friends to comment on the images that you post. And how do they intend to earn out this application? Because their limited friends policy leaves very little room for advertisers to tap new people. 

In reply to all these critics, Dave reassures that with time Path might let you add more than 50 friends but never more than 150. And as far as making money out of advertising is concerned Dave believes that "Because people are posting such immense amounts of information about their lives, there could be more opportunities for brands to talk to Path users in a more personal way than ever before."

Although the concept 'Personal Networking' does sound appealing but we will have to wait and watch as to that how well Path is able to execute it with further add-ons or features. 

What do you think...does this startup stand a chance to compete with the big boys?

Do share your views, opinions or feedbacks in the comment section below. 

Visit Path website here.