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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.

#101

Post by jarek »

joshu wrote: post #71
ojbyrne wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think HN is much better than TechCrunch/Mashable/etc in that regard. The big tech blogs seem to have a vested interest in promoting the idea of huge acquisitions. People here seem genuinely interested in the details and the detailed outcomes.

I dunno. It feels like a lot of the comments are either angry/chip on shoulder/etc or are presenting opinions as fact for puffery. Hardly any better. There's not even a glimmer of doubt in anyone's mind that the reporting might be incorrect, etc.

HN thinking TC might not be perfectly right every time? Why I never!

- Still bitter about the TC/Last.fm/U2 story

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

#102

Post by natrius »

DarkShikari wrote: post #63
natural219 wrote: post #45

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 ca…

Whether there's good money in solving this sort of problem is another question -- but sorting through shared photos at events is a surprisingly hard problem, as I learned recently. I attended Anime Expo 2011 in costume. Over the course of the two days I was there, I probably had at least 100 people stop me for photos -- not unexpected with thousands of people walking around carrying cameras. I attended a photo shoot…

The problem you've described is very solvable. Photos contain the time they were taking and, increasingly, the location they were taken. If you're looking for photos of something you know you saw, a reasonably accurate guess of time and location should narrow the choices to a manageable number.

A two day period is more difficult, but sorting photos by popularity will let people find most of what they're looking for. Photos of themselves are harder, but the facial recognition technology to do so exists as long as you're not in too elaborate of a costume.

I've almost convinced myself to work on this at this point. I hate taking pictures, but I love looking at pictures of memories I have. I don't think I'm alone.

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

#103

Post by arihant »

Color's elastic network would be if only here were more people in it. I think they suffer with a massive chicken and egg problem. I hope they figure things out.

I am yet to use Color with another person in the same room.

I think Google is after their sound technology.

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

#104

Post by tgood »

Sayter wrote: post #49
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

Ultimately the most expensive domain ever was broadcast.com, to just be forwarded now...

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

#105

Post by mark242 »

natural219 wrote: post #45

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 ca…

"When I'm at an event -- say, a concert -- there are hundreds of people around me taking lots of different pictures."

You're absolutely correct. They just aren't using Color, and that's the problem. Every single person I've talked to has said that Color is a great idea, _hypothetically_. In reality, Color fails on the most basic of user experience, it shows absolutely no content when it starts up, ever, and there's no sort of reward for even taking a photo with Color-- you don't get anything out of the experience.

I get the idea that the product guys at Color sat down and thought, "okay, if everyone who has an iPhone or Android used our app instead of the default camera app, and everyone at a concert stood within 150 feet of each other (don't laugh, that's the range of Color), and all took photos within a short amount of time, they'd be in a great social network."

I'll leave it to the reader to determine how absurd that sounds. The constraints on the application at startup basically doomed it.

Take a look at Foursquare as a counterpoint. Early adopters didn't get to see anyone else checking in, they likely didn't have any friends also checking in, there weren't any photos, and there were very few non-NYC badges. But goddamn, you could be the mayor of _everywhere_. The functionality of Foursquare still works even when there's only _one_ person using it. The functionality of Color completely fails unless there are groups of people in very close proximity all using it at the same time.

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

#106

Post by pinaceae »

as an outsider, i don't understand the allure behind color at all.

elastic social network? is this something a 16 year really thinks when using facebook? oh i wish it was more elastic? sounds like nerdvana.

proximity photo sharing? why would i want to do that? i am careful about which pics i share with the world. they transmit my persona, so i don't share shots that suck. or maybe i am taking pics no one else is supposed to look at - as in private. why would you want to look at my kids, perv?

honestly, not all ideas by talented and bright people are good. just look at asana, yet another project tool.

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

#107

Post by kooshball »

derefr wrote: post #99
sparky wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP conflated RFID and NFC a bit, at least their colloquially accepted meanings. What we normally call 'NFC' has a range of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication ). This is what also makes NFC more suitable for mobile payments than RFID.

Hmm; true. Maybe just passes with large, simple QR codes on the front of them, then? Then the device taking the picture wouldn't even have to decode them just-in-time; the data would be encapsulated in the picture itself.

QR code on a name tag or conference badge would be a great idea.

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

#109

Post by orionlogic »

natural219 wrote: post #45

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 ca…

Agree with you and made my comment couple of days ago in here : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2753996

Idea is good, they only need users.

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

#110

Post by deepGem »

natural219 wrote: post #45

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 ca…

But why would those people with nice equipment who take great photos want to give the photos to you, or anyone for that matter. They might be willing to share the photos but am not sure how that really helps. Will they allow you to share the photos to your circle.. so on and so forth.

The valuation is another total mystery.

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