Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap • Hacker News Board

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#11

Post by ghshephard » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:06 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #6

danilocampos wrote: post #3

I'm reminded of the nerd response to iPad. I don't have a dog in the hunt, but the idea behind Color is interesting. It could crash and burn but I'll reserve judgment until I see normal people (non-nerds) engaging with it. Meanwhile, the vehemence is weird from everyone, especially Gruber. I wonder if he would have posted the same entry if Color had a Lonely Sandwich video.

The iPad is a computer that, as far as my mom is concerned, you never have to boot, don't have to think about the operating system on, don't require peripherals for, can stick in your purse, can tap 3-4 times to get install any of 10's of thousands of applications, can tap 3-4 times to install any of thousands of movies and TV shows on, and costs half of what a cheap laptop cost only recently. Can you inform me of th…

It took me over a year before I "got" twitter. Now it would be hard to see how I could replace it - tracking outages, ongoing event updates, what my friends are up to, revolutions in Egypt - Heck, our company's public feed is actually the best way for me to track what's happening at our company than our internal mailing lists.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether there's any money in it. Everyone I know uses AIM - but I don't know if AOL has ever been able to monetize that.

Regarding Color - I'll give it a bit of time, and see what I think after I go to an event with groups of friends, and see what happens when we (and others) are taking pictures.

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#12

Post by haploid » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:19 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #8

wallflower wrote: post #4

I'm fascinated by this Photo-Sharing-is-tip-of-the-iceberg tidbit: "A few feats of engineering brilliance hide under Color's slick surface. How does the app determine who's in the same room with you? Not with GPS, which is flummoxed by floors because it can't distinguish vertical distances between people. So Nguyen's team taught Color to use a phone's lighting and audio sensors, stitching their signals together with…

So... it's the great photo sharing app of all time , then? Um, ok? $41MM? When's the last time you had even the faintest urge to share a photo? I'm a geek, and that urge hits maybe once every other week.

I think you vastly underestimate the driving compulsion of millions of attention whores to get random men to tell them how hot they are by virtue of myspace angles and flattering lighting.

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#13

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:21 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #8

wallflower wrote: post #4

I'm fascinated by this Photo-Sharing-is-tip-of-the-iceberg tidbit: "A few feats of engineering brilliance hide under Color's slick surface. How does the app determine who's in the same room with you? Not with GPS, which is flummoxed by floors because it can't distinguish vertical distances between people. So Nguyen's team taught Color to use a phone's lighting and audio sensors, stitching their signals together with…

So... it's the great photo sharing app of all time , then? Um, ok? $41MM? When's the last time you had even the faintest urge to share a photo? I'm a geek, and that urge hits maybe once every other week.

I think his point is that the photo sharing is little more than a proof of concept. The exciting thing is the automation of ad-hoc networking. The internet collapses geography, but as a result it does a poor job of many tasks at the local level - search for 'Bob's diner' and you may find that you're just on the wrong side of the block, or you might get info on cheap flights to some completely other city containing a more famous restaurant with the same name.

The technology underlying Color seems like a much-needed metric for establishing spatial (and by implication, temporal) relevance. An accurate and behavior-based metric of relevance, as opposed to one based on self-selection via search/signup, would be very, very easy to monetize. Say you're in the fashion business. You could buy online ads to reach people who search for fashion-related stuff online, but wouldn't you rather reach people who spend a lot of time in the same places as your target demographic?

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#14

Post by mc2k » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:39 AM UTC

Could this be an "old boys' network" type of deal? Investing in it because one of their other established investments is in line to purchase it? Is something like that allowed? If it is, presumably it happens regularly.

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#15

Post by zachrose » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:41 AM UTC

wallflower wrote: post #5

zoowar wrote: post #2

If you invited me over for diner and then pulled out a photo album, I would leave. The concept is cool, but photo sharing is over hyped.

Is photo sharing this generation's equivalent of the mandatory family Kodachrome slide show?

It's not a wheel. It's a carousel.

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#16

Post by Darryl_Sirt » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:44 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #9

So let's call Color the Rebecca Black of Web 2.0. Too immature, too early to tell, too much attention out of nowhere, too much momentum for too little effort. But it looks good, right?

Rebecca Black has waaay more traction

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#17

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:46 AM UTC

haploid wrote: post #12

tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... it's the great photo sharing app of all time , then? Um, ok? $41MM? When's the last time you had even the faintest urge to share a photo? I'm a geek, and that urge hits maybe once every other week.

I think you vastly underestimate the driving compulsion of millions of attention whores to get random men to tell them how hot they are by virtue of myspace angles and flattering lighting.

[deleted]

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#18

Post by tptacek » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:48 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #13

tptacek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... it's the great photo sharing app of all time , then? Um, ok? $41MM? When's the last time you had even the faintest urge to share a photo? I'm a geek, and that urge hits maybe once every other week.

I think his point is that the photo sharing is little more than a proof of concept. The exciting thing is the automation of ad-hoc networking. The internet collapses geography, but as a result it does a poor job of many tasks at the local level - search for 'Bob's diner' and you may find that you're just on the wrong side of the block, or you might get info on cheap flights to some completely other city containing a…

You're selling the technology to me. It sounds interesting. But so was that iPhone app that translated Spanish out of OCR'd video in real time, rendering the results back in the correct perspective. Shouldn't the real-life Babelfish be worth more --- and I mean, to the market --- than Color?

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#19

Post by tptacek » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:48 AM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #11

tptacek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPad is a computer that, as far as my mom is concerned, you never have to boot, don't have to think about the operating system on, don't require peripherals for, can stick in your purse, can tap 3-4 times to get install any of 10's of thousands of applications, can tap 3-4 times to install any of thousands of movies and TV shows on, and costs half of what a cheap laptop cost only recently. Can you inform me of th…

It took me over a year before I "got" twitter. Now it would be hard to see how I could replace it - tracking outages, ongoing event updates, what my friends are up to, revolutions in Egypt - Heck, our company's public feed is actually the best way for me to track what's happening at our company than our internal mailing lists. Of course, it remains to be seen whether there's any money in it. Everyone I know uses AIM…

"Sounds like the nerd response to Twitter" is a pretty compelling restatement of the parent's point. Thanks.

Re: Color: Breathlessly Overhyped Piece of Crap

#20

Post by jfager » Fri, Mar 25, 2011, 1:49 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #8

wallflower wrote: post #4

I'm fascinated by this Photo-Sharing-is-tip-of-the-iceberg tidbit: "A few feats of engineering brilliance hide under Color's slick surface. How does the app determine who's in the same room with you? Not with GPS, which is flummoxed by floors because it can't distinguish vertical distances between people. So Nguyen's team taught Color to use a phone's lighting and audio sensors, stitching their signals together with…

So... it's the great photo sharing app of all time , then? Um, ok? $41MM? When's the last time you had even the faintest urge to share a photo? I'm a geek, and that urge hits maybe once every other week.

I think photo sharing is just a shot at hooking into a really valuable data stream. All they should want are phones that are turned on and sending them pictures, audio, and location info, and they can turn around and spit out all kinds of analytics that advertisers will eagerly pay for.