Advertisement

Path 2.9 update introduces contextualized, personalized search (update: now with video)

Many of us enjoy looking through our social network history to reflect on shared memories, and Path is helping users do just that with its latest 2.9 update. Adding a comprehensive search feature that uses metadata in addition to user-defined tags, searching "Photos from Thanksgiving" pulls relevant images even if they didn't have those words in the post. The same concept applies to different days and times, like "sunset" or "weekend brunch." Other contextual categories include friends, places, seasons and the weather. There's also a "Nearby" function that taps into your phone's GPS for moments captured in your immediate vicinity.

One particular search that impressed us during a hands-on briefing is the ability to search for "emotions." Similar to the "like" feature in Facebook, Path lets users mark a post with one of five emoticons (smile, frown, laugh, gasp or heart). With the 2.9 update, you can search for all the posts that received a particular emoticon ("funny" searches all the laugh-tagged posts for example). As a little easter egg, if you search for "royal flush," you'll bring up the posts that have received at least one of each emoticon. It's more amusing than useful, but we found it cute nonetheless. The search feature is only in English to start, but the company is planning on additional language support in the future. Check after the break for more screens, or hit the links below to grab the latest version of Path from Google Play and iTunes.

Update: Path has just uploaded a video to demo the new feature. Take a look at it below.

PATH "Remember Your Life" from Path on Vimeo.