

What is the point of Color (Mark Hughes, screenwriter) - helwr
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-point-of-Color/answer/Mark-Hughes-1

======
MTuton
After installing COLOR on my phone and being linked to Some Dude And His Cat
Somewhere A Couple Blocks Away, I realized what COLOR will become:

A total, complete, utter Cockshot Tsunami.

See: Chatroulette.

Unless they have some elegant Phallic Recognition And Elimination Algorithm
(Phalgorithm?) much like facebook's nipple-liminator, they're about to unleash
a $40,000,000.00 Dick Tractor Beam onto everybody's phone.

~~~
tzs
Here's a Phallic Recognition and Elimination Algorithm that will work for
COLOR (but not for Chatroulette) (note: I am not endorsing this--just
suggesting that this is what might develop naturally):

1\. Girl in bar gets cocked on COLOR.

2\. Girl shows this to slightly inebriated boyfriend in bar. He's had enough
to drink to lower his judgement but not impair his ability to deliver an ass
stomping, especially when he's got backup.

3\. Boyfriend says to his buddies "hey, let's go find this ass".

4\. Ass is located, and they explain why what he did was not polite. The
explanation is done non-verbally.

5\. Ass stops offering cock shots (assuming cock still attached).

6\. We discover why COLOR needs all that money they just got--lawyers to
defend against lawsuits from people like the ass, trying to blame COLOR for
what happened to them after they posted their cock shots.

------
brianwillis
I can't decide if this is a brilliant piece of Gruberesque writing, snarky to
the point where it just teeters on the brink of parody, or if this guy is for
real.

~~~
splish
Given that he was previously asked if it's possible to become Batman in this
day and age ([http://www.quora.com/Given-our-current-technology-and-
with-t...](http://www.quora.com/Given-our-current-technology-and-with-the-
proper-training-would-it-be-possible-for-someone-to-become-Batman/answer/Mark-
Hughes-1)) , and he answered that in earnest as well, I think he's answering
to the best of his ability here too.

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kmfrk
The worst part, to me, about the mobility of photography technology and social
media is that a lot of people feel a compulsion to experience everything
through a medium. If they attend a concert, they must experience it by
snapping photos or videos - they completely forget to enjoy and experience the
music and atmosphere by themselves.

I don't know if this stems from some innate "collector's eagerness" human
trait or a desire to document and immortalize everything for posterity, but a
lot of people tend to forget to enjoy things on their own, in the very moment.

I don't know if this is a gimmick some people just are guilty up, and which
hasn't been directly created by technology, but it's a shame that a lot of
people don't stop for a minute and take in the entire experience without any
intermediate lens. Try to enjoy the sight and sound of Niagara Falls, before
you try to figure out how to crop the vista and when to upload it to Flickr.

~~~
macrael
There is always a balance. I do too little to document, and often find myself
wishing I had something to remember an event by.

~~~
kmfrk
Sure there is. If you love photography, you obviously have to geek out, but I
imagine that good photographers are also capable of turning photographer mode
on and off.

And Mom needs to get a digital postcard at some point.

------
ynniv
Really? Color.com is going to help me avoid being crushed by a falling
skyscraper? _Really?_

The point of Color is to extract money from the next set of idiots who invest.
Or, exploit your privacy in a _different_ way. Or both.

~~~
splish
I think the point made in the answer was that the kind of passive social
networking that Color is going to provide is a step beyond seeing a friend's
facebook wall or twitter upload in the situation of a 'fire alarm' emergency.

These are going to be, for the most part, uploads by people unknown to you
that will inform quickly and completely on a situation you cannot grasp as
well alone.

In his September 11th example, perhaps you would see pictures from nearby of
smoke and people moving away from it and gather enough information that you
yourself will react as you will with a better sense of the world around you.

There was no skyscraper evasion skill mentioned in the answer. Really.

------
willheim
The author, Mark Hughes, is correct in his write-up and comes up with a few
suggested scenarios where it would be "ideal". Unfortunately for Color those
ideal situations where a critical mass makes the app useful are few and far
between. How could Color have demonstrated themselves better? Maybe by
launching a SXSW where a tech savvy and experimental crowd would give it a go,
see the benefit, and continue on using it. Come to think about it, that is
exactly what Twitter did. Now, imagine if twitter launched like Color did. You
are posting with no followers, no one you knows sees any reason to use it so
your feed is empty. Now add that you are anonymous, can't "follow" anyone, and
wait until some random stranger in your vicinity post something but meanwhile
your stream is empty. That's Color.

Oh, and as for the group event image sharing thing... didn't Posterous launch
Events at SXSW? Yes they did (and for $41m less).
[http://blog.posterous.com/introducing-posterous-for-
events-a...](http://blog.posterous.com/introducing-posterous-for-events-a-
place-for)

------
mquander
It would be hard to come up with a vision of the future that freaks me out any
more than that description.

------
jeremymcanally
I kept sincerely hoping this was extremely dry satire, but I think it's for
real.

My favorite piece of ridiculous: "...you're in Time Square taking a photo of
the M&M store, but everyone else has fed images to the experience network of
the rabid grizzly bear running up the street behind you. Hmm, time to change
your relationship to your surroundings right now, isn't it?"

Or maybe if I weren't navelgazing and taking pictures for a stupid "social
network" I would be more aware of my surroundings?

Every use case he states for the "geolocated social network" is already served
(and better served) by Twitter. Hey a skyscraper is falling. Someone is going
to stop take a picture? Don't think so. They won't tweet while running either
(probably), but what's more useful after the fact? A bunch of pictures of dust
and random people running, or a text tweet that says "Hey something exploded"?
The use cases here make no sense whatsoever.

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smoody
Granted, I haven't read all of the critiques of Color, but here's my issue
with camera apps: For any given moment, people are going to choose one app to
document that moment. Are people going to start with Instagram, take a photo,
switch to Color, take the same photo, then perhaps go to Path, and take it
again? No. Apple et al needs to create a photography pipeline that apps can
tap into and users can choose which apps are in that pipeline. Not an easy
problem to solve given all of the capabilities, but worth trying.

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esmevane
I think we like to let our imagination and the vision of all the possibilities
it brings us take reign, and that is good. Because of that, I can definitely
throw a handful of monetary speculations into the air concerning this service.

To get this level of funding before even exploring the utility of these
services just leaves me marveling, and suspicious.

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kevinburke
It feels a little silly to be arguing/explaining this now - won't we know
whether Color has a "point" over the next few months/years as it either
succeeds/fails in the marketplace?

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janm
Color strikes me as the pets.com of 2011.

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rokhayakebe
Once you go past the filtering (naked pictures) issue Color has a huge
potential. I personally think if they tackle this one issue they will build
something more powerful then Twitter (a snapshot is easier to take then
writing 140 characters), Groupon (I can get deals just buy walking past a
restaurant and looking at their photos), and many other big social startups. I
hate to say this here, but I would bet on the idea. Now I am not even talking
about social news. Can you imagine what this would mean for CNN and similar
news outlet on breaking news. They can find and buy videos from all the guys
capturing straight from the source.

In short color will be the most accurate way to answer "What's happening at?"

