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With its individualistic, yet unifying theme, Path is already well on its way to creating
its brand. If Morin and his team remain true to this vision, their network is likely to prosper.
That means Path's designers must create within a context of intimate and private commu-
nication. They might expand the brand identity to include more apps with more functions,
but they must be careful not to contradict it. They, and all brand owners, should resist
the urge to find connections where there are none—like a gun maker producing mountain
bikes. Psychologists and motivational speakers always tell us: “Be true to yourself.” This
is the mantra of a successful brand.
By their nature, social networks like Path are aimed at sharing all kinds of information.
One user might be sharing pictures of his dog, while another tells friends how she learned
to change her spark plugs. With Foodspotting, Alexa Andrzejewski has created an innovat-
ive way to do something that's more specific, yet is common to everyone: eating.
Until Andrzejewski began Foodspotting, she'd been a UX designer at Adaptive Path.
There, she worked on mobile apps for Nokia, Rail Europe, and many others. She'd become
an expert at helping all kinds of clients—from startups to established companies—re-ima-
gine their products from the ground up. At the beginning of 2010, she struck out on her
own. She wanted to combine her passion for great food with her occupation. Foodspotting
was the result. “We want to cover the earth with sightings of good food,” she told MX 2011.
Andrzejewski's inspiration came from experience. She'd recently visited Japan and
Korea where she'd tried dishes she'd never experienced before. One was a savory Japanese
pancake called okonomiyaki, and she'd also happily discovered tteokbokki (spicy, stir-fried
rice cakes), a popular Korean snack. When she got back stateside she looked for places that
served these near her home in San Francisco. Though the cities around San Francisco Bay
boast more Japanese and Korean eateries per capita than anywhere else in North America,
Alexa was stymied. “The local guides [were] too broad, and the discussion boards too un-
structured,” she said at Web 2.0 Expo in 2009. None of her standard search tools could find
these seemingly rare dishes.
Andrzejewski was not alone. “Everyone I talked to saw the need for a dish-centric din-
ing guide,” she says, but everyone wondered how she could collect the data. Then Alexa
began to notice how many diners were snapping photos of their meals in bistros and cafes,
and then sending them to their friends. This would be the key to data collection: tap into
peoples' existing behaviors, and let your users do it for you.
Her idea was a mobile app designed to help users share pictures of specific dishes in
restaurants. All postings are about good food, rather than bad. “We don't allow negative
ratings because we're all about foods people love,” says the Foodspotting website. If you
