Scamps, Now Available in the Shop
Brainiac, manic, stumped, and smitten, they say it all without saying a word. Scamps, the newest sticker pack by Hugh MacLeod is now available in the Shop.
Read more about cartoonist and blogger Hugh MacLeod here.
Path in the Wild: A Day in Hong Kong
Michelle from Hong Kong took the Path in the Wild Challenge as she tucked into a plate of sweet treats and enjoyed a spectacular view from her cable car. See if you can spot the Path smile amongst the collage of retro posters.
To participate in the Path in the Wild Challenge, email us at moments@path.com with your mailing address!
Dramaticals, Now Available in the Shop
We’re very excited to announce the release of our first sticker pack since the launch of Path 3— “Dramaticals”, by artist David Lanham. Get it now in the Shop, and start sharing with messaging. Available on iOS and Android.
A Moment With: Hugh MacLeod, Cartoonist
As longtime fans of artist Hugh Macleod and his work, it was a no-brainer for us to ask him to create custom sticker packs to be used in messaging. Here, Hugh chats with us about his work, his inspirations, and his creative collaboration with Path.
Q: Among other things, you’re known as a blogger, a marketer, and a cartoonist. Tell us a bit about the road to the career you have carved out for yourself. When did you first begin creating/drawing?
A: I drew cartoons in college, then got a day job in advertising. I landed a job in NY, and one night just started drawing cartoons on the back of business cards. I’ve often written about the power of ‘small art’. I get to create with little risk, put ideas out there and see what happens. It’s really an art form that parallels marketing. Pushing ideas out and seeing what happens.
I drifted off into blogging territory once the Internet came along. In 2004, I met my business partner, Jason Korman, who showed me that my art form could have real business applications. Off we went, and the rest is history.
Q: What are a few adjectives that you would use to describe your work?
A: Adjectives and phrases: Inspirational, Subversive, Culturally Relevant, Honest, Transparent, Real, The Voice of Contemporary Business.
Q: Where do you seek inspiration (other contemporary artists, publications, friends, etc.)?
A: Most of my inspiration comes from people watching. This is what made my years in New York so wonderful. The artists who inspire me the most are composers and musicians. Visual artists inspire me less. I am a voracious reader.
Above all, I am a keen observer of business and entrepreneurship. I love big enterprise. It is a stage where people play out every form of human behavior. I am always looking for what motivates people. Why people really get out of bed in the morning, and how can I help communicate what really matters. Business people think that business is about making money. At it’s core, it isn’t – the money flows from doing other stuff really well. Usually the better you do it, the more you make. If you understand human behavior, human needs, you can accomplish anything you want in business. I help real leaders do that.
Q: How did you become interested in marketing? How important is good marketing to the contemporary artist?
A: Marketing at its core is just about human behavior. As I said above, I am a student of human behavior. You can have focus groups, you can survey, or you can read my cartoons. The latter is just as insightful and a lot cheaper ;-)
I believe that there is a special place for art in business. Art allows for expression that transcends ‘normal’ business communication. One reason why enterprise marketers are panicky these days, is because there is no such thing as ‘normal’ anymore. I’ve found that by using art, I can have discussions at work, that would be really hard to have otherwise.
To answer your question directly, I challenge anyone to name a famous artist who lived within the last hundred years who wasn’t a good marketer. There might be a few, but post 1960, there are almost none.
Q: Tell me a bit about the experience and creative exchange working with Path. Why did you agree to this collaboration?
A: Dave Morin, the CEO and founder of Path, is a long time fan and collector of my work. Dave is one of the guys in the tech world that I really admire. He’s got vision and strength, a good combination. I also like the idea of social where you aren’t talking to the world. God knows, I spend much of my life talking to the world. But, there are times when I just want to see what my closest family and friends are up to. I like the way Path is a proxy for what’s really important.
Q: Talk about the sticker packs you created for us. How did “the Best” and the “The Worst” come to be?
A: In social media, we love sharing both the stuff we really like (The Best) and the stuff we really hate (The Worst) with our friends. The two extremes are the bookends of our lives. Friends sharing their lifestream is of course one of Path’s most important functions, so I wanted to make stickers that made it easier and/or more fun to do so.
Q: How do you envision/what is your hope for how your work is used in Path messaging?
A: I just want people to have random fun with them. Random fun is the best kind. The “usefulness” comes later…
Q: Has the experience working with Path differed from any other commissioned work you’ve done in the past?
A: I’m often producing work for clients who aren’t certain how they are going to use it. This often creates anticipation on my part that is unmet. I like that.
One other point that really mattered: Since I am used to working in small spaces, my ‘normal’ canvas is 3.5 × 2 INCHES. So, I am really comfortable working in tiny spaces. Most artists aren’t, and this is why working in a postage stamp sized space actually felt good.
Aside from that, Path was really great to work with, Jenny Ji, Path’s Design Director, was a joy, and let us get on with our work. I say this mainly because not all clients are so nice to deal with, or respectful of the process.
Q: Any advice to budding cartoonists?
A. 1. Practice every day, regardless. 2. Embrace the web. 3. Most cartooning business models suck, so try to invent a new one. 4. Be the most tenacious SOB in the history of the planet.
Blog: www.gapingvoidart.com
Owner’s Guide for Messaging
As you know, with the release of Path 3 a couple weeks back, we introduced one-to-one and group messaging. Allowing for those conversations you want to keep just between two or a few, Path messaging is designed to be a private space for personal expression, fun, and utility.
Share photos, videos, and location moments in the same way that you would in your main Path feed. Choose a spot for date night, and a map will appear with your designated location. Chat about what you’re reading, watching, and listening to with media moments.
Send a voice snippet to say good morning, extend an invite, or sing a lullabye. Use the “Hai” check mark to instantly express agreement as you would with a nod or a hearty “Yes!”
In the neighborhood? Drop a location pin to let your friend know that you’re right down the street. Your Path photo will appear on a map at your exact location, making meeting-up one tap away.
Step into the Shop to personalize your conversations with handcrafted sticker packs. Stickers are designed to communicate what words sometimes can’t; choose “Nom Nom” to express how much you’re craving that burger, conjure up a little romance with “Fluffie” and his big brown eyes, vent with “The Worst” while waiting in the never-ending line at the DMV.
We so hope you’re enjoying messaging, and that it’s providing a fun, intimate, and useful stage for the conversations with those you love talking to most. For questions or feedback, reach out to us at any time through our service form: http://bit.ly/PathHelp or on Twitter: @pathservice.
A Moment With: Jake Mix, Graphic Designer at Path
Today we get to know Jake Mix; graphic artist, cartoonist, board game fanatic, newsboy cap aficionado, and ever-chuckling member of the design team at Path.
What inspires you?
Comics artists! There are so many amazing cartooning styles around the world – I love seeing how an artist chooses to convey information and emotion.
What’s your favorite part of working at Path?
Since everyone is so capable, we’re afforded a great deal of trust with each other. It strikes me as a rare and fortunate thing.
A perfect Sunday would look something like…
Getting together with friends to play hours of board games, with good food and beer. Or camping in an isolated forest grove, with good food and beer.
Besides Path (obviously), what app do you use the most?
Nothing shocking here: Twitter. I love the creativity that comes from the 140 character constraint. Perfect for comedy, experimentation or brief blasts of conversation.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
I’ve always been partial to Nightcrawler’s power: short, quick teleportation. Just think of the parkour!
How did you dream up the Patheputians?
For those who don’t know, we call the characters in the illustrations used in our blog posts “Patheputians.” We needed an illustration style and character design that would read well at a small scale while conveying a great deal of emotion. Also, I wanted anyone to be able to put themselves in a Patheputian’s shoes, so I kept them very abstract, and add detail as the scene requires.
What would be the first song on the playlist of your life?
Talking Head’s “Don’t Worry About the Government”. Great combination of optimistic naïveté and cynicism.
Who are some of your favorite contemporary artists?
Back to the comics well! I love Chris Ware, Darwyn Cooke, Moebius, Joost Swarte and Taiyo Matsumoto, to name a few. But really there are too many to name. Any time I see something new by Olly Moss, it never fails to blow me away. I also love the minimalism of Oakland poster designer Jason Munn.
What qualities do you most admire in people?
Always working to get better, and never being satisfied with your current level of abilities. And, frankly, just being level-headed.
Do you have a motto or favorite quote?
“How’s that for a slice of fried gold?” An eminently usable quote from Spaced.
Comics artists! There are so many amazing cartooning styles around the world – I love seeing how an artist chooses to convey information and emotion.
What’s your favorite part of working at Path?
Since everyone is so capable, we’re afforded a great deal of trust with each other. It strikes me as a rare and fortunate thing.
A perfect Sunday would look something like…
Getting together with friends to play hours of board games, with good food and beer. Or camping in an isolated forest grove, with good food and beer.
Besides Path (obviously), what app do you use the most?
Nothing shocking here: Twitter. I love the creativity that comes from the 140 character constraint. Perfect for comedy, experimentation or brief blasts of conversation.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
I’ve always been partial to Nightcrawler’s power: short, quick teleportation. Just think of the parkour!
How did you dream up the Patheputians?
For those who don’t know, we call the characters in the illustrations used in our blog posts “Patheputians.” We needed an illustration style and character design that would read well at a small scale while conveying a great deal of emotion. Also, I wanted anyone to be able to put themselves in a Patheputian’s shoes, so I kept them very abstract, and add detail as the scene requires.
What would be the first song on the playlist of your life?
Talking Head’s “Don’t Worry About the Government”. Great combination of optimistic naïveté and cynicism.
Who are some of your favorite contemporary artists?
Back to the comics well! I love Chris Ware, Darwyn Cooke, Moebius, Joost Swarte and Taiyo Matsumoto, to name a few. But really there are too many to name. Any time I see something new by Olly Moss, it never fails to blow me away. I also love the minimalism of Oakland poster designer Jason Munn.
What qualities do you most admire in people?
Always working to get better, and never being satisfied with your current level of abilities. And, frankly, just being level-headed.
Do you have a motto or favorite quote?
“How’s that for a slice of fried gold?” An eminently usable quote from Spaced.
Portfolio: www.jakemix.com
Twitter: @jakemix
Remember Life: Search Now Available in French and Spanish
Last December we launched Search, one of our favorite features so far. It was great to reminisce as a team and look back at how much the Path team had evolved throughout the past years. We rediscovered some great times that made for good laughs and stories all around. We hoped that the rest of our Path community could do the same, and have so far heard of some great stories that had once been considered lost and have have once again been found.
Though we were excited to launch Search - we know we still had to continue working on making Search available to our international users. We are now thrilled to announce that it is now available in Spanish and French, and we will be rolling out new languages during the coming months.
As part of this launch, we hoped to talk to some of our international users and feature some of the moments they were able to rediscover. We reached out to David Sulitzer, who lives in Paris and has been using Path to share life with his best friends, his girlfriend and his parents. He was kind enough to talk to us and share some of the great things he found:
I’ve used Path to document some of my most exciting moments this past year - from starting a new job to taking a trip with my family. This photo is from a skiing trip my cousins and I had been waiting to go on for quite some time. Once it finally happened we thought there was no better place to share our trip than on Path. It was a great trip, and it had been the first time the three of us had gone skiing together.
I also found some wonderful memories I shared with my girlfriend. This day was particularly peaceful - just relaxing at the park after work; I wish everyday could end this way.
One of the best parts of searching back in time was finding great comments from my friends and family. This particular moment is just another one of those lovely Christmas evenings where we exchanged way too many presents. My favorite part is my mom’s comment.
What surprised me the most though was that I could look back and see all my friends’ imported moments from before they had joined Path and re-start old conversations around some memorable stories. I could see old jokes, past trips and how things have changed over the years. It’s great to have one place where we can store all of these memories.
We’d like to thank David for sharing the moments he found with us. Feel free to check out his blog for more of his thoughts here.
We’d also love to hear of any great memories that you guys have found with the help of Path. Please share with us any memorable stories at moments@path.com.
Community Meetup in Austin
This weekend we hosted our very first community meetup in Austin, Texas. We were thrilled to meet a crew of diverse and enthusiastic users, some visiting Austin for the SXSW festival all the way from Germany. Over pitchers of Blue Moon, we discussed how everyone uses Path with their family and friends, along with feature requests, and the just launched Path 3.0. We want to thank everyone present for the laughs, war stories, and for the incredibly valuable insight into how we can improve and build on the Path experience for those who love it most.
As our first gathering was such a fun success, we’re hoping to have another one soon! If you’re interested in hosting a Path meetup with your community, email moments@path.com, and we’ll set you up with a meetup pack and feature you here.
Many thanks again to everyone who came out!
A Brand New Language – Introducing Path 3 with Private Messaging, Stickers, and the Shop
When we speak with friends, share a joke, a quiet word, or a conversation over drinks, there is so much more than words that pass between us. A smile or nod or encouraging gesture – these allow for true connection and understanding. Being really with someone. How can a technology hope to recreate our unspoken language? How can it create the experience of being across the table from someone, beside them in a crowd – when you are miles apart? It’s a goal worth striving for, and one that is so important to us.
Today we are excited to introduce Path 3. We have added private messaging – the Path take on it – that we hope will help you feel like talking in person, with a hand on your arm, seeing a friend’s scrunched nose, wide smile. That it might make you laugh out loud.
One-to-one and group messaging is made for the smaller, more personal conversations that you want to have on Path. It includes text, voice, location, stickers, songs, books, movies, photos, and videos. There’s utility and context. For example, if you’re running late, you can tap the location button to let a friend know where you are. Or if you don’t have free hands to type, you can record a voice message.
Stickers? These are pieces of art to be used in messaging. They are expressive and fun, and they communicate what words can’t. You can choose what speaks to you, and speaks best on your behalf: a fist bump, over-caffeination, jealousy, big love. We’ve given you two free sticker packs designed in-house and we’ve worked with some of our favorite artists, like David Lanham, Hugh MacLeod, and Richard Perez, to create packs that you can buy in the Shop.
Thank you for being with us these past three years. If you are just joining us, we are so happy to have you, welcome. We hope you enjoy Path 3.
Path 3 is available in 19 languages and for iOS and Android devices. Get it now in the App Store. Available soon in Google Play.
The Bridge Program and Path
Meaningful design is at the collective forefront of everything we do here at Path. From the smallest interaction to major product decisions, our goal is to create a virtual space that delights and connects people by the simplest and most compelling means possible. Our design team is a unique group of individuals with a wide background of experience, from traditional branding to cartooning.
We are so excited to announce our partnership with the Bridge program, a designer-in-residence program from the Designer Fund that connects experienced designers with top startups in San Francisco, to continue to add to our diverse community.
Benefits for accepted designers include:
Benefits for accepted designers include:
- Work on projects that impact millions of people
- Join a design team and company that truly values design, has a great product, growing user base, and funding
- Learn from talks and workshops with a community of designers
- Flexibility to work at a top startup for three months before making a longer-term commitment
- Top salary, relocation expenses up to $10,000, health care, and equipment
To learn more about the Bridge program, and potentially contribute firsthand to the Path team, please visit http://designerfund.com/bridge/. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis before March 10th for the Spring term.
Path in the Wild Challenge: Round 1
Thanks to all of you who have participated in the Path in the Wild Challenge so far! We have loved watching Path accompany you on your adventures from Chicago to New Orleans, Minnesota to Tokyo.
We’ve just received a shipment of new custom vinyl stickers from Sticker Robot, so please reach out to us at moments@path.com if you’d like to participate.
Insider Report: How to Tell a Better Story
We always knew we wanted Search on Path, but needed the timing to be just right. As our users create more and more moments, the ability to go back to their previous moments becomes more and more important. We didn’t want to build an “explore” or recommendation feature, but rather a way for users to find and tell their stories. This is how we built it.
The Search Engine: Elasticsearch
In the landscape of search engines today, there are basically two options: build your own or choose one of the existing solutions built on top of Lucene (http://lucene.apache.org/). We looked at the existing Lucene based solutions, such as Elasticsearch, Zoie, Solr, and Bobo. We ended up choosing elasticsearch due to its architecture (document-oriented, REST API, JSON format, distributed), features, and strong userbase and community (http://elasticsearch-users.115913.n3.nabble.com/). Choosing an existing search engine rather than building our own meant we were free to devote resources to building the actual search product, along with other new happenings at Path (stay tuned!).
Elasticsearch is feature-rich, including the ability to do geo distance filtering (a “nearby” feature on mobile is killer), facets (which power our search suggestions), and routing (which allows us to shard by user). Elasticsearch allows us to live-index our moments giving users near real-time search. Elasticsearch is designed to scale out easily by adding more nodes to the cluster. One does need to be thoughtful about how many shards are originally chosen as that cannot be changed once the index is built. Shay Banon, the creator of elasticsearch, was invaluable in helping us choose the right number.
Search Suggestions
Search on Path is different than the popular web search engines. We needed a way to “teach” our users what was possible to search for on Path. Rather than having just an empty white bar staring at our users, we wanted to present our users with possible suggestions. These search suggestions would give users a quick and easy way to perform searches without typing a single letter. The search suggestions needed to ensure that actual moments would be behind the search for this user. This is where we leverage Elasticsearch’s facets. We use facets to query to see if certain searches (does this user have any photo moments? or happy moments?) are satisfied, and if so we store that particular search suggestion in our database.
Using Elasticsearch’s filter facets, we can do more than just single term search suggestions (such as “happy” or “photos”). We can actually do complex queries with nested booleans to narrow focus to searches on date + time range, or emotion + full text query, etc. This allows us to offer “search suggestion stories”. Search suggestion stories are a more powerful form of search suggestions that give users a more human feel, such as “Listening to music on the weekend” and “watching movies with friends”.
Query Parsing
A straightforward solution would be to take the user’s provided search query and run it against all searchable fields (friends’ names, places, holidays, moment types, etc.) and ascertain the relevant moments. Since our data is highly structured, we can do better by separating the query into two parts: keywords and full text search. We can find and parse out all keywords and match them to their relevant fields, then do a full text query against fields where it is impossible to know all possibilities (such as comments and places). This filtering nicely fits with the overall product design of finding a story (collection of moments) as opposed to finding the “best” moment.
We handle the standard stop words and stemming, but decided to stay away from the rabbit hole of true NLP (Natural Language Processing).
Autocomplete
For our autocomplete service, we wanted something that was simple and fast. We didn’t need a solution with a ton of features, just one that did this simple service well. We also needed a service to handle all 19 of our languages - which means it has to be unicode aware and ensures that the stored data and search keys were encoded correctly. Lastly, we needed something that works today but could be easily enhanced to scale/shard in the near future. We decided to build our own (https://github.com/jayridge/autocomplete).
For more information and tips on searching on Path, visit http://service.path.com/customer/portal/articles/899911-search-suggestions-tips . If you want to help build the next version of Search, http://path.com/jobs -Eric Kustarz, Server Engineer at Path
Path Heart Hand Pies
It’s down to the wire and you’re panicking, in search of a special treat for your sweetheart to come home to after a long day at the office? We’ve got you covered. These no-fuss, incredibly easy yet impressive heart-shaped hand pies are a sure thing. These guys go great with a classic champagne cocktail or hot chocolate (don’t forget the dash of whiskey). Throw on a little Stevie, Smokey or Marvin, scatter a few tea lights, and arrange these on some of that good china you’ve been saving for situations such as this. Valentine’s Day: easy as pie!
Path Heart Hand Pies
3 cups Strawberries
4 tablespoons sugar (granulated or brown works)
Zest of half a lemon
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla
Store bought pie dough
One egg
Powdered sugar and/or whipped cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Let pie dough rest until it is room temperature and then roll out thin. Hull and quarter strawberries. Mix berries with lemon zest, sugar, and cornstarch. Cut dough into heart shape with a butter knife, roughly palm-sized. Place a small pile of berry mixture on the center of heart. Lay another heart cut-out on top of the berries. Smoosh edges together with the edge of a fork. Separate egg white from yolk and brush top of pastry with the yolk mixed with a little water. Bake on a metal pan until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Top with whipped cream and powdered sugar.
If you end up making these, tweet us @Path and let us know how they turn out!
Moments on Path: A Love Letter
“My girlfriend and I have been huge fans of Path since version 1.0. We only share with each other on Path, and we pretty much document every piece of our lives on it.
We are in a long distance relationship right now, and Path has really helped bridge the gap between us. We always check-in on Path so we can know what the other is up to, and we share photos of all our dates on so we can look back on them when are not together.
Path has really helped and encouraged us to maintain our relationship. I sent my girlfriend a letter for Valentine’s Day, since I don’t get to see her until later this month. I used the stickers I received from Path to create a “Pove” Letter, (P for Path, of course)! I know that my love letter writing could improve a bit, but the stickers really enhanced the note and helped convey my affection.” -Wat, Japan
Path has really helped and encouraged us to maintain our relationship. I sent my girlfriend a letter for Valentine’s Day, since I don’t get to see her until later this month. I used the stickers I received from Path to create a “Pove” Letter, (P for Path, of course)! I know that my love letter writing could improve a bit, but the stickers really enhanced the note and helped convey my affection.” -Wat, Japan
“For me 2012 was an amazing year! I graduated from business school, traveled to the US for an exchange program and started my career. Path was a great friend through it all, keeping track of all those amazing moments for me.
At the end of the year I went back through my Path and revisited the moments I had shared. They were all right there in front of me as if they were actually happening right then. I wanted to share my past year with my friends, so I took screenshots of some of the best moments and created a video so everyone could relive the journey with me.”
-Hadi, Saudi Arabia
