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

#171

Post by Brizz » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 2:29 PM UTC

jkincaid wrote: post #22

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…

Yeah, based on what they said they have some much more ambitious plans than just photo swapping. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) they were vague about what those plans entail — they made some references to heavy data crunching, but I couldn't really get a straight answer as to exactly what they were crunching or what it would be used for.

From what I've read they can automatically reconstruct a space on the fly using the images captured.

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

#172

Post by Brizz » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

g123g wrote: post #116

pedalpete wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Ha! The UI is so bad that you will spend the entire event trying to figure it out – missing the entire event. Then you HAVE to use Color to see what the hell happened.

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

#173

Post by crux » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 2:41 PM UTC

I'm using this right now and I still really don't get it. As far as I can tell, this does the exact opposite of a social app: instead of bringing together people with similar interests or relationships (like Instagram, for all its faults), it exposes me to people who I have nothing in common with except happening to be in the same neighborhood. I mean, am I right? Can that possibly be the point? There is a 'group' composed of myself and three other people I've never met, all of whom presumably live or work nearby—and then another 'group' that's not apparently any different, except I haven't joined it yet. I'll admit that some of my confusion is due to the completely opaque interface.

EDIT: Ok, RTFA seems to indicate that these groups are fluid and intended to form themselves according to whom you hang out with most often, so presumably if I keep taking pictures then it will figure out who my friends are. That's a neat idea, but unfortunately still moves against my instagram-a-like point above: if we should have learned one thing about how people make friends in the year 2011, it's that physical proximity doesn't really enter in to it.

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

#174

Post by neutronicus » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 2:51 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #42

jkincaid wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, based on what they said they have some much more ambitious plans than just photo swapping. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) they were vague about what those plans entail — they made some references to heavy data crunching, but I couldn't really get a straight answer as to exactly what they were crunching or what it would be used for.

Knowing Sequoia, I'm guessing it will automatically trade exotic derivatives by using ambient lighting data to make better weather predictions.

I'm thinking getting in bed with the government is not out of the realm of possibility.

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

#175

Post by jackvalentine » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 3:04 PM UTC

olivercameron wrote: post #8

I wonder how much color.com cost?

I wonder the same about colour.com which they also own.

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

#176

Post by Splines » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 3:17 PM 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…

> you’ll then be able to see all of the photos that have recently been taken within 100 feet of them.

Why are they restricting it to time? Given such a focused physical proximity, seeing what people were doing where you're standing a year ago might be interesting.

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

#177

Post by ssharp » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 3:28 PM UTC

Finance fail?

If you discount the investment to 1999 value, it's under what Sequoia gave Google.

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

#178

Post by easp » Thu, Mar 24, 2011, 3:58 PM UTC

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…

Different perspectives can be valuable, if only to feed the narcissism of youth, but I have my doubts it will be enough to grow or sustain this thing.

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

#179

Post by nunomaia » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:24 AM UTC

csel wrote: post #110

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 personally think they just solved a huge problem. Oh wait..what problem were they solving again?

Eff that problem solving thinking! This is hip inner circle echo chamber visionaire big capital sponsored royalty man, they think ahead, its not about solving, its about creating, creating problems. Number one, how to recover 40 million.

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

#180

Post by nunomaia » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:27 AM UTC

geoffw8 wrote: post #163

notahacker wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Facebook for the people you spend time with without adding as friends; Foursquare for people that aren't motivated to deliberately broadcast their whereabouts; Grindr for people in your area not looking to hook up. The underlying technology sounds like it could be useful for everyone from Facebook to the FBI, but the service itself has more buzzwords than users in my area, and I don't see too many reasons w…

How many times has anyone sat and looked at photos on Flickr, and used geocodes to restrict results to the local area? Answer: probably not enough to warrant a $41m investment.

or just used android google maps with buzz etc...