On the recommendation of Tim Bradshaw at the FT I tried out Path – the social network for your close friends, apparently. Tim (who’s a fine purveyor of all things new and trendy) was particularly impressed by the iPhone app, so I gave it a try.
It is beautiful – a really slick, tactile interface, lots of features that are genuinely different and fun when compared with Facebook – including photographic filters, a more intuitive way of expressing sentiment about friends posts, more natural use of location based services… and did I already mention the really, really nice UI? Very sci-fi. I’m afraid I haven’t included detailed pics from the app in use as the app really does share a lot and any screengrab of value would require so much photoshopping to anonymize it as to make it not be worth the time. It’s a free app, try it out 
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Only problem? Hardly anyone’s on there. Of the 1,800 contacts in my address book and 450 friends on Facebook, the phone discovered 2 people I knew well enough to want to add them on Path. And whilst I’m not necessarily the world’s most popular guy, I’ve been around long enough to have more than two people I want to share with.
Still – have a play. You may have more early adopters in your circle than I do. How many friends do you have on Path?