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Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

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Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#41

Post by MikeCapone »

jdp23 wrote: post #26
zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

First of all take it with a grain of salt. That said, there are at least a couple of ways to look at it: 1) There are reports that Google offered some of its product managers tens of millions of dollars to keep them from joining Twitter. If that's how they're valuing talent, then $200M is in the ballpark for Color's "superstar team" combined with some very interesting IP, 2) Smart investors described Color's technolo…

You just reminded me of another "next Google". Cuil.

Not comparing Color to them talent-wise, just saying, you made me smile :)

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#42

Post by bonch »

rudiger wrote: post #33
zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

This was way before Google+ took off. Likely, the Color team would have been an integral part of their social strategy. With that in mind, a $200M offer isn't unreasonable.

Google+ hasn't yet taken off. It's only used by Google employees, early adopters, and celebrity bloggers.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#43

Post by presidentender »

ziadbc wrote: post #17
zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

These deals often faul through at the last minute. Much of the time, the company making the offer just wants to get a look 'under the hood' of a potential competitor. Think of all the companies google has made these offers to and the deal didn't happen. Strategy at this level is kind of like macroeconomics, it just doesn't map to what makes sense on face value.

I'm wondering how it came to be that you typed 'faul.'

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#44

Post by bonch »

parfe wrote: post #19

Is this just pure greed? Did Color think they had a billion dollar idea? From my understanding they're a public photo album. What revenue source did they target?

The same revenue source Google was interested in when they made the offer--your personal data for purposes of context-sensitive advertising.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#45

Post by natural219 »

I might be the only person in the universe who thinks Color is a fantastic idea, but not because it's trying to be an uber-cool new social network.

Location-based photo sharing is an incredible idea. When I'm at an event -- say, a concert -- there are hundreds of people around me taking lots of different pictures. I want those pictures, but I don't know any of those people. Imagine going to a venue, not bringing a camera, but still coming away with awesome, memorable photos of the band, from people that have nice equipment and know how to take photographs.

I'm not sure it justifies the huge valuation, but I can easily see why this product had the potential to be a huge player in the photo-sharing space. I feel like the press from their first round caused such an unnecessary uproar around their brand that coming back and producing a humble, useful app was nearly impossible.

That said, I probably would have taken a $200 mil payoff for an idea for an iPhone app.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#46

Post by joshu »

i feel like HN is fascinated by but has relatively little understanding of how deals work.

companies don't just show up on your doorstep with an acquisition offer and a giant check. many times the deals are staged and dependent on progress. consider google's acquisition of dMarc, the talked about price, and the actual price.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#47

Post by cedsav »

zoul wrote: post #12

I feel like I live in a different universe. Can please someone explain to me what rational thinking might be behind such offers?

It reminds me of the Measure Map acquisition. Launch a new product, then acquire a talented team that worked on something similar. It worked pretty well I believe for Google Analytics.

http://techcrunch.com/2006/02/14/google-buys-measuremap/

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#48

Post by pclark »

I think that Color is an incredible idea for an application, and when I read their pitch I wanted to bang my head on the desk for not coming up with that concept because it is so beautifully simple yet obvious yet useful!

Isn't it obvious that if you are at an event, say, a birthday party, you'd want to see what photographs your friends are taking as they take them? What about at a sports game or concert, can you imagine how amazing that'd be?

Raising $41M, selling for $200M, all irrelevant versus the grand scheme of this idea. I worry that they have this awesome idea, and are poor at actually building the product, and this makes me sad because I really want someone to do it right.

I really do not understand the hate at Color, they have made mis-steps, but their concept is actually a good idea - compared to a lot of stuff that Hacker News thinks is dumb.

Re: Google Tried To Buy Color For $200 Million. Color Said No.

#49

Post by Sayter »

suneliot wrote: post #16

$200 million. For the domain! At the rate the value of that domain was rocketing, seems like a decent investment at the time. Too bad no one's going to want to be associated with it after what team Color did to itself.

$200 million for a domain as an investment? Only one domain has ever sold for more than $10 million. You get below the $1 million range before you're even out of the top hundred. Domains are not as valuable as people think they are, and the rules change entirely once the new TLD system hits.

For the record: Color.com was purchased for $350,000

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