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?
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