Path has quietly increased to 150 the number of people you can share photos with, up from 50 -- a limit the startup deliberately set when it launched its "grand experiment" in November 2010.

"Moving to 150 gives users control and still allows for a high-quality network -- highly noted anthropologist Robert Dunbar pinpointed this range of 50-150," Path founder and CEO Dave Morin told LAUNCH via email.

In our December 2010 review of Path, Dave cited Dunbar's work on the number of trusted relationships humans can maintain throughout life. According to Dunbar, people will have 5 best friends, 15 good friends, 50 close friends and family, and 150 friends.

Path added the ability to share photos to Facebook in March.

The move to 150 is likely a sign that Path is an interesting concept but was faced with user revolt or disinterest due to the limitation. But it is also a sign of strength that the company upped the number. People are not driven to use a product by its limitations, like Twitter's 140-character limit. We think Twitter would have succeeded with 280 characters.

In a survey of LAUNCH readers in December, nearly 58% said Path should keep its friend limit at 50. LAUNCH put the chances of an increase at 50-50.

Dave, an early Facebook engineer who formerly led product marketing and strategy for Apple, founded Path with Shawn Fanning of Napster fame.

Path has received more than $11.2M total from investors including Kleiner Perkins -- which gave Path $8.5M in February -- Index, First Round Capital and Founders Fund.

"We wanted to start in the most simple place we could, and layer on deep value for the user over time in an iterative fashion." Dave told LAUNCH in December. "We began at 50 as the place to begin this grand experiment, and will likely evolve the model to map as closely to how the human brain works over time."

-=-=-=-=-
AWESOME STARTUP JOBS
Challenge Post - Solving problems for everyone.
Datastax - Big Data. Big Smarts. Big Fun.
Thumbtack - America's marketplace for local services.
RecoEngine - Tech Buying. Made Simple.
Rapportive - Let's make email a better place

LAUNCH Blog