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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.

#51

Post by angryasian »

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…

I agree to an extent, its not the idea of capturing a location as so much a collective at a specific moment in time. Example: Yelp/Gowalla collect pictures of food and venues and really it doesn't matter so much when they were taken. Color is cashing in on capturing moments in time that are relevant to a group of related or unrelated people, but the real question is how often is this relevant and even for times that are relevant, as a fleeting moment, will 90% of the pictures provided even matter to a user. I can tell you honestly I get bored after looking at the first few pictures of random people I care nothing about.

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

#52

Post by funkah »

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…

That's what I figured as well, but the execution was too confusing as it turns out.

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

#53

Post by neilk »

joshu wrote: post #46

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.

I'd love to read more about this... what the average person thinks versus the reality of a deal.

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

#55

Post by drivebyacct2 »

r00fus wrote: post #34
lwhi wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it simply a way to acquire talent?

Bingo. I doubt Google was really interested in Color's business model or app.

I couldn't disagree more. Look at how many people Color's already gone through. Look at how atrocious their apps were (that they were pulled and still are). The only thing they have going for them is the "photos-after-the-fact" experience that others have detailed here. (Go to a concert, come back and see hundreds of photos of the band, maybe even you, etc, without even doing anything)

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

#56

Post by ojbyrne »

joshu wrote: post #46

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.

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.

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

#57

Post by r00fus »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #11
null_para wrote: post #2

Something must be there in their product that everyone is willing to pay top dollar. And these are all smart people who are ready to pay btw, not any average joe investor

There are always 3 things: idea, team and execution. Color had a genuinely interesting idea: make a social network via implicit information rather than deciding whether or not the a person is a "friend". I can see this being of particular interest to Google as they built themselves on a similar premise: ranking web searches via implicit data (links, etc.) rather than a hand built index. So, with an interesting idea a…

When they didn't show up to SXSW which would have been perfect to demonstrate their app, they already failed.

Google wasn't paying for execution, so $200M might have been worth the talent (and perhaps the idea).

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

#58

Post by techiferous »

neilk wrote: post #53
joshu wrote: post #46

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.

I'd love to read more about this... what the average person thinks versus the reality of a deal.

Ditto. Someone please blog about this and post to HN!

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

#59

Post by Hisoka »

lmkg wrote: post #38
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?

Remember, Color's real mission was not photo-sharing, but data-mining. Google would pay dearly for a new, innovative way of collecting types of data that they don't have yet.

Anyone can do data mining if they have huge traction. It's getting huge traction that's the problem. I can do data mining if I sold a micro-chip that tracked ppl's movements 24/7.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] »

joshu wrote: post #46

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.

[deleted]
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