In what ways can we distinguish between a human and bot behavior?

How does Path hope to auto-curate friendships in a sociologically meaningful way?

• Read this article on Fast Company (http://www.fastcompany.com/3007008/tech-forecast/path-explores-ways-end-awkward-friendships-its-not-you-its-my-bot?partner=newsletter) and thought this: It's two sided. Yeah, you can auto-degrade your friends or so-called friends, but perhaps you want to continue hanging out or rekindle a relationship that once was much stronger than it is now. Shouldn't Path help promote that behavior and not let you lean on old friends (habits)? The analogy is very one sided. If there is someone you're closer friends with, then its' more likely that you'll want to hang out with that person in a personal setting. But perhaps this other person you'd used to hang out with has lost touch with you, does this discredit the idea of ever becoming better friends with this person again? People lose touch with friends and old friends all the time. Shouldn't Path be smart enough to, instead of saying "you haven't checked-in with this person in months, we'll remove them," suggest that you hang out with them? I think interpersonal networks are much more complex than this and Path should be a way to curate friendships and find the best ones that suit your lifestyle. No?

• Answer:

  (I'm no social network expert, just an iOS developer at Path who's had the privilege to watch this space evolve over the past few years.) While you raise some interesting points, I think maybe they're rooted in the perception of real-life social encounters. In real life, just because it's been a while since you've interacted with someone doesn't mean you want to exclude them from your life altogether. However, in the digital social realm, if someone is off the radar, it's not such a big deal to, say, unfriend or stop sharing with them after a while. If they should suddenly become active again, then there's an easy way for Path to then say something like, "Hey, you used to be connected with this person, and now they're back! Get reacquainted?" Certainly, Path doesn't want to encourage you to ditch friends and acquaintances who haven't been active on Path recently. At least not automatically. I think Dylan was rather suggesting that Path could recommend who you're most active with to make it easier to decide who fits best into your Path 150. I have several close friends and family members who simply aren't active on social media at all. They installed and tried Path, but after a while (e.g., several months to a year) of inactivity, I feel like it's fine to remove those connections to make room for new ones. After all, is it more important to maintain that stagnant friendship or build up a new one that's active? By removing these inactive connections, it doesn't mean they aren't important to me in real life. However, as far as social media is concerned, they simply aren't as valuable a contribution as other connections might be. Of course, that can easily change. It's an ebb and flow. Like experts (like Zuckerberg) mentioned, this isn't an easy, clear-cut problem with an obvious solution. And like Dylan mentioned, this is just something we're thinking a lot about at Path. How it relates to new features we release, only time will tell. For other networks, it may be perfectly fine to have a huge number of connections that are completely inactive (since it doesn't "cost" you anything), but for a network like Path, you begin to be selective once you near that 150 limit. And maybe that's a good thing.