Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 10:30 pm

Time for Apple to build its own social network (and buy Path?)

Here’s my post at ReadWriteWeb in response to Addressbookgate:

Apple can take all that address book data and make a real social platform out of it, adding features like two-way friend confirmation, blocking users, public profiles, photo sharing, activity streams, whatever. Then, one click could let you import all that stuff, especially all those existing friend relationships, into apps. Eventually, this could even become a standalone social network service, like Facebook. Maybe call it “Friend Center”.

Btw, if Apple’s going to buy a team to build this, it might not do better than to acquire Path, the company that inadvertently started this whole Address book fiasco. Path CEO Dave Morin, famous for being an early Facebook guy, also worked at Apple. (He actually worked on Facebook’s first deal with Apple iTunes long ago.) The key questions are: Would Apple buy or go in-house here? And does Morin want to sell, now that Path is showing signs of success?

  • Follow @SplatF on Twitter or RSS for the latest.

New! Comments are welcome but moderated. Please read the Commenting Guide first.

  • http://www.techinch.com/ Matthew

    Though with iOS 5, Twitter already seems like Apple’s preferred social network…

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      Eh, I think Twitter is fundamentally flawed as this kind of social network because it’s too focused on following celebs + news + public updates. There’s more private stuff that you’d need a second social graph for.

      • http://www.techinch.com/ Matthew

        Interesting thoughts, and true, I don’t use it much for personal interaction. Really, they should combine iMessage and Facetime, make it work 100% on Macs and perhaps PCs, and they’d have a shot at beating Skype at least.

      • http://twitter.com/BoJacobson Bo Jacobson

        maybe that’s where Twitter needs to go, and what Apple needs from a social network. Apple already has iMessages and the address book. They just need a public posting place. (which is why we’ve seen the twitter integration so far) I find it (somewhat) more likely that Twitter would develop to be more like Path, but the existing user base keeps Apple out of Pingfail territory. Interesting conversation however it plays out. 

  • http://4vr.me/ l1nu5r

    Social network that’ll work on Apple devices and few part of it will work only on iPad/iPhone? It’ll fail just like ping

    • http://www.fromedome.com/ Dan Frommer

      I don’t know about that. There are many little populations that are near-100% iOS. Almost of my friends and family have iPhones, as I see by my iMessage/SMS breakdown these days.

    • http://andersonjr.com/ wiljr

      And, because Path is more focused on specific segments (ie, a ‘closed’ network of your family / friends), this seems to make a lot of sense for Apple.

  • Anonymous

    A simple step in this direction would be “Show me what apps my friends have bought” in the iTunes store. I wrote about this here: http://blog.intercom.io/5-ways-to-improve-the-app-store-for-customers/

    I can’t help but feel that for some reason Apple either doesn’t “get” or doesn’t care about social. Most likely the latter. 

    When SJ presented Ping, he didn’t look enthused at all. Ping itself is a failure. 

    But you’re right there are communities that are close to 100% iOS – I’m in many of them. Instagram for starters :)
    I would love Apple to be more aware of who I am, and the networks I move within to improve my experience in general.  

  • jmorgenstern

    Maybe they already have? http://jarrodmorgenstern.tumblr.com/post/17852031518/thenextgreatsocialnetwork