A little less than one month ago at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Google Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan delivered a talk called “Building New Experiences with Google Glass”. In front of a crowd of wide-eyed developers and tech media, Jordan gave the world a first look at how apps will integrate with Google Glass. Among the apps demoed were Google’s own Gmail, Evernote’s Skitch, The New York Times, and social-network Path.

Most of those seemed fairly commonplace at the time, but I’ve been mulling over the integration of Path for a while now. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Path is a perfect fit for Google Glass. Path and Glass together could revolutionize the way we share what we’re doing with our social circle. Why Path? Look at it this way: Path is meant to be a visual timeline of your day. What are you watching? Listening to? Looking at? Thinking about? Who are you hanging out with? It allows you to literally chart the path of your life. What better device to capture exactly what you’re doing as you’re doing it than one that can see and hear what you’re doing at any given moment? Google Glass.

Imagine you are sitting at home, watching Star Wars Episode VII on your 4K media player. Your Google Glass, in turn, is also watching Star Wars. It detects the movie, and a dialogue box pops up: You are watching Star Wars Episode VII. Would you like to share this on your Path?

You are spending a relaxing afternoon reading Mockingjay before the final Hunger Games film hits theatres. Glass scans the text of the book, recognizes it, and asks: Would you like to post about Mockingjay on your Path?

You and your friend decide to spend Spring Break in California, and your first stop is Disneyland. Glass springs in to action: You and Anna are at The Magic Kingdom. Check in on Path?

Whether this type of omnipresent technology excites or scares you (I’m in the former group), you have to admit that the possibility is intriguing. Automatic detection and the creation of pre-populated social network posts? Who wouldn’t want that? Sharing what you’re doing as you do it may seem banal to some, but the truth is that we all do it. Thanks to Glass, Google has the opportunity to revolutionize the way we share those moments, and Path would be the perfect social network on which to share them. Why not Google+? Easy: Google+ is visible and public, whereas Path has been positioned as a private social network for you and your real-life friends. And Path already has the infrastructure and features in place to allow for quick and easy integration with Glass, without the need to build or re-imagine an existing social network like Google+.

Now on to the big question: will Google buy Path? Turns out they’ve already tried once, and my bet is that they will try again. If they play their cards right, “Google Path” (perhaps “Glass Path”?) could be the killer feature of Project Glass. With just over 6 million users and no proven revenue model, Path may soon find acquisition a tempting, ahem, path to take - though CEO Dave Morin seems content to remain independent for the foreseeable future.

While this is entirely based on conjecture, just imagining what the future of online social networking will be like thanks to Project Glass is extremely exciting. As for Path, if stickers and a subscription model don’t turn a profit for the company, I’d say there’s a perfect opportunity awaiting you deep inside Google X Labs.

Tweet