Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#111

Post by tuhin » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:11 AM UTC

Ok, correct me if I am totally mark on this one but here are my takeaways:

1) The idea of creating groups on the fly to take photographs from a shared location is what got the funding.

But using a tighter geofencing (remember how in Gowalla one had to stand at a point to check in) the same can be brought in Instagram which already has a million or so members.

2)The photo is public for anyone in the vicinity of 100 feet or perhaps everybody (sorry for missing that) but one does realise that it limits my ability to share things with the world. I mean only in case when something is cool would I want to share it with the world and other times stop short of making myself look not so cool.

3) Local+Social+Mobile is great on paper but these are not the dimensions that make a great app. It is the underlying mechanics. For a $41 million investment and a overpriced domain name, they sure did not blow my mind off.

4) As far as the white noise of social apps is concerned it was the same problem with all apps, facebook included if you were in the party early! Can't hang them for that.

5)For the latent interest in finding photos around an area or location, there always are foursquare/gowalla (sitting on huge data) and instagram with the tags lately (remember #sxsw ?). You really think one would use them?

5) I remember Chris Dizon lately writing about investing in people over ideas and it looks like with 7 rockstar cofounders, thatis what happened here. But hey, who said anything about turning a blind eye to the idea?

6) Last, people around me wanting to see photos around them :) can just turn around or shoot foursquare to find a lot more info over a longer period of time than using the app, right?

Of course I am saying this all since I am a hater for seeing them receive such a huge funding for no apparent (to me) reason!

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#112

Post by tuhin » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:19 AM UTC

helton wrote: post #41

guelo wrote: post #15

Was anybody able to find the android app? They don't link directly to it and searching for "color" is too generic. Which, btw, is a problem with their name.

Even on the iPhone, you can't find the app searching for "color". I followed the link from color.com

Problem with such a cool yet common domain is that you do not get shown at the top unless you already are big.

Also how does it feel: " I am using color" vs "I am using Colors"?

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#113

Post by tuhin » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:20 AM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #106

robryan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wonder how much colour.com cost.

first thing that I thought to myself when I saw the name - half the world spells it different, so they may want to also buy and brand the colour.com domain

They actually own Colour.com as well! :)

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#114

Post by tuhin » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:22 AM UTC

Cherian_Abraham wrote: post #94

johnrob wrote: post #86

What has YC (and every other prominent investor) been emphasizing lately? That the team is the most important part of the deal. And that team looks rock solid, arguably more so (on paper) than google did in 1999.

True. But does that alone deserve a 100 million dollar evaluation? I dont know enough tech luminaries who can constitute a team that can command such a high price tag, on launch day none the less. What do I know? My own wife wouldnt put down $100 on me to win :)

My own wife is a funny term. Redundancy at it's maximum.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#115

Post by bdotdub » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:23 AM UTC

desigooner wrote: post #87

flyosity wrote: post #58

I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed. Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst first-run user experience I've ever seen. I wonder if…

I feel the same. Unfortunately, after spending a few minutes with such an app and not having a positive impression, it's pretty rare that I would revisit the app again later in the future. Most of the people I know behave the same way: if it catches their attention, it stays on the phone or else the app's gone. The best launch scenario for them would have been SXSW .. instead, all the group messaging apps got the lim…

While I agree that the privacy of this feels a little weird, it's always opt in, just like 4sq is opt in. If you don't intend your photos to show up at a location, don't take photos on Color.

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#116

Post by g123g » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:26 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #103

crux wrote: post #83

'Say you walk into a restaurant with twenty people in it. You sit down at a table with four friends, and start chatting. Then one of your friends pulls out their phone, fires up Color, and takes a snapshot of you and your buddies. That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it was taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see the photograph listed in a stream alongs…

Though I like what their doing from the perspective of trying to find a filter for which friends you're most often physically around, you point to what I think might be a big flaw. Not only are people in the immediate vicinity less likely to need/want to view a copy of your photo, but will they take out their phone and launch the app to do that? I can see wanting to see the photos you took when we were together, but…

The premise is that we will be so busy looking at all these cool mobile apps on our phones that we do not even see what is going around us. The only way to find that out is using Colors!

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#117

Post by kongqiu » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:29 AM UTC

olivercameron wrote: post #7

Sounds technologically impressive, I'm just wondering if a dynamic friend list is really an advantage over a static list. The last thing I want to be doing when hanging out with friends is to be on my mobile phone checking out what they've posted to Color. I'd rather, you know, interact with them in real life. Maybe I missed a vital point of it, though.

But you can look at photos of them! On your phone! Sorted magically!!!

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#118

Post by kongqiu » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:31 AM UTC

hammock wrote: post #30

Creepiest part- "it uses the camera to check for lighting conditions, and even uses the phone’s microphone to ‘listen’ to the ambient surroundings." The auto-social network based on proximity is awesome, though. I can't wait for this and the creep factor will be gone in five years anyway since we are all moving to a more open society.

"The app Josef Stalin would have used..."

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#119

Post by waterlesscloud » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:33 AM UTC

kalvin wrote: post #3

Title doesn't do it justice. The photo-sharing part isn't what's novel. They seem to be building a social graph automatically weighted on physical proximity+frequency, using smartphone sensors (the most important one of which happens to be a camera). That's cool, and potentially game-changing. "All of your contacts are presented in a list of thumbnails ordered by how strong your connection is to that user. Whenever C…

If there's no cell signal, how do the phones know they're capturing similar audio?

Re: Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google

#120

Post by g123g » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 5:35 AM UTC

What about the spammers or weirdos sending their images to an unsuspecting crowd. I will be wary of seeing photos shared by unknown people in a public and crowded place like Times Square. And what about children using this app? Can they watch all uncensored, unfiltered images any stranger wants to share?