Color will make it. They are smart people. Bill sold companies for a total of $900+ M. Peter was the guy who got T-Mobile to introduce BillShrink to its millions of subscribers and more people (through tv ads). Apparently they also have LinkedIn former chief scientist on staff. Teams like that win. Sooner or, maybe in this case, later.
Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
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Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#12This reminds me of the story about the executive in training that cost his company several hundred thousand dollars. He goes into the boss' office and says "are you going to fire me?"
The boss says: "Hell no, why would I fire you when I just paid $500k to educate you!"
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#13Where does it say Bill fired Peter?
Mr. Nguyen said the company had taken the criticism to heart and charted a new course. He fired Color’s president, Peter Pham, and its engineers are building a new version of the app to be released later this summer.
I wish they went into why they fired Peter. It seemed like a passing thought in the article. What was he doing wrong? Seems like Bill was equally at fault...
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#14They're not pivoting - they are simply iterating.
"Mr. Nguyen said the company had taken the criticism to heart and charted a new course". "Photos might not even be a part of Color in the future, he said". Sounds like a pivot to me.
Most of their technology is in location. Such as the piece that listens to your microphone and can identify the specific location you're in better than GPS does.
They just need to find a "disease vector" (photosharing? music sharing? sexting?) to get people to use their location technology and make themselves available for tracking and advertising.
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Mr. Nguyen said the company had taken the criticism to heart and charted a new course". "Photos might not even be a part of Color in the future, he said". Sounds like a pivot to me.
Most of their technology is in location. Such as the piece that listens to your microphone and can identify the specific location you're in better than GPS does. They just need to find a "disease vector" (photosharing? music sharing? sexting?) to get people to use their location technology and make themselves available for tracking and advertising.
Is that the same technology that showed me pictures from another user's phone that were taken miles away from our location when we were using the app? If so, it needs some work. It's also unclear to me how sound can inform GPS coordinates in any meaningful way.
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#16Color will make it. They are smart people. Bill sold companies for a total of $900+ M. Peter was the guy who got T-Mobile to introduce BillShrink to its millions of subscribers and more people (through tv ads). Apparently they also have LinkedIn former chief scientist on staff. Teams like that win. Sooner or, maybe in this case, later.
I can't help but feel that one reason Color is struggling is that while Bill appears to have a good track record for startups, he has never built one that is as front-facing and user-centered as Color, where design is an absolute necessity. He appears to be busy hiring a lot of "smart" people, and unfortunately those types of people (e.g. D.J. Patil) don't seem to be the most appropriate for defining the direction of a product whose success involves caring about its users. If Color's new direction also involves giving its users the middle finger, we can safely continue to write all 38 of them off.
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#17Color will make it. They are smart people. Bill sold companies for a total of $900+ M. Peter was the guy who got T-Mobile to introduce BillShrink to its millions of subscribers and more people (through tv ads). Apparently they also have LinkedIn former chief scientist on staff. Teams like that win. Sooner or, maybe in this case, later.
Cuil will make it. They are smart people. Anna Patterson was the architect of Google’s search index. Tom created a revolutionary search engine that introduced automatic clustering and page analysis. Apparently they also have a Google former technical lead on staff. Teams like that win.
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#18Once again, (after viewing their demo video again) I find myself puzzled by who Color is targeting, what their app really does, and of course how they will make money.
It seems they're kind of a twitter for photos with ad hoc local area wireless photo sharing. What problem does this solve?
When I take a snapshot, why would I want to share it with anyone who happens to be in range? What makes this so appealing? I can't see any appeal, but perhaps that's just me.
How do they make money? It seems they'll be going for some variant of permission marketing, based on accrued data of user interests. But how does the user benefit?
Re: Color Pivots; Bill Nguyen Fired Peter Pham
#19Once again, (after viewing their demo video again) I find myself puzzled by who Color is targeting, what their app really does, and of course how they will make money. It seems they're kind of a twitter for photos with ad hoc local area wireless photo sharing. What problem does this solve? When I take a snapshot, why would I want to share it with anyone who happens to be in range? What makes this so appealing? I can'…
I think it's ad-hoc location-based social networks. So attendees at a conference would form a social network and share comments, photos, etc. In fact, every presentation could be it's own mini-network of people in that room. They could sell ad space to the vendors at the conference.
They just need to find a killer use case that motivates early adopters to use it. For example, it could be used at colleges to form networks around classes, sports events, parties. This app would be very useful during disasters, but you can't build a business around that. ;-)