
Sequoia gives photo-sharing startup more money than they gave Google - parth16
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/23/color-looks-to-reinvent-social-interaction-with-its-mobile-photo-app-and-41-million-in-funding/
======
flyosity
I just tried out the iPhone app and I'm pretty disappointed.

Color seems like one of those ideas that would be pretty rad if 1 million
people already used it. Because no one has the app yet, if you fire it up it's
totally blank. You take a picture of yourself, post it, then the rest of the
UI is whitespace. There's nothing to look at or do. It's possibly the worst
first-run user experience I've ever seen.

I wonder if the Color engineers were always using the app together and always
seeing each other's photos. If that's the case the UI was always full of stuff
to look at, and they probably demoed it to journalists like this as well. Did
they ever actually see the app as an empty slate like everyone will see it the
first time they use it? My guess is: no.

~~~
csel
I personally think they just solved a huge problem. Oh wait..what problem were
they solving again?

~~~
Cossolus
This product reminds me of cue-cat, in the sense that it fails to solve a
problem that doesn't exist.

------
kalvin
Title doesn't do it justice. The photo-sharing part isn't what's novel. They
seem to be building a social graph automatically weighted on physical
proximity+frequency, using smartphone sensors (the most important one of which
happens to be a camera). That's cool, and potentially game-changing.

"All of your contacts are presented in a list of thumbnails ordered by how
strong your connection is to that user. Whenever Color detects that you’re
physically near another user (in other words, that you’re hanging out), your
bond on the app gets a little stronger. So when you fire up the app and jump
to your list of contacts, you’ll probably see your close friends and family
members listed first. But if you don’t see a friend for a long time, they’ll
gradually flow down the list, and eventually their photos will fade from color
to black-and-white.

...If you fired up Color in that restaurant example from earlier, you’d only
be able to see photos that had been taken by friends and strangers within 100
feet of that restaurant. That is, unless you jump to your social connections.
Tap on your best friend’s profile photo, and you’ll then be able to see all of
the photos that have recently been taken within 100 feet of them. In other
words, Color is trying to give you a way to see everything that’s going on
around you, and everything that’s going on around the people you care about."

"Color is also making use of every phone sensor it can access. The application
was demoed to me in the basement of Color’s office — where there was no cell
signal or GPS reception. But the app still managed to work normally,
automatically placing the people who were sitting around me in the same group.
It does this using a variety of tricks: it uses the camera to check for
lighting conditions, and even uses the phone’s microphone to ‘listen’ to the
ambient surroundings. If two phones are capturing similar audio, then they’re
probably close to each other."

~~~
jkincaid
Yeah, based on what they said they have some much more ambitious plans than
just photo swapping. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) they were vague about
what those plans entail — they made some references to heavy data crunching,
but I couldn't really get a straight answer as to exactly what they were
crunching or what it would be used for.

~~~
Alex3917
Knowing Sequoia, I'm guessing it will automatically trade exotic derivatives
by using ambient lighting data to make better weather predictions.

~~~
neutronicus
I'm thinking getting in bed with the government is not out of the realm of
possibility.

------
nostrademons
It's mobile, it's social, and it's local! They managed to hit all the
buzzwords in one startup!

~~~
jarin
I'm a little concerned that it isn't viral and/or paradigm-shifting.

~~~
nostrademons
It probably is viral and paradigm-shifting too, based on the description. It
really is the perfect startup - hits _every_ buzzword, founder with a previous
exit, all-star team, etc.

Too bad startups aren't checklists to tick off.

------
crux
'Say you walk into a restaurant with twenty people in it. You sit down at a
table with four friends, and start chatting. Then one of your friends pulls
out their phone, fires up Color, and takes a snapshot of you and your buddies.

That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it was
taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see the
photograph listed in a stream alongside other photos that have recently been
taken in the vicinity.'

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when it comes to photo sharing, aren't the people
in your immediate vicinity at the time you take a photo the people who are
going to be the least interested in getting that photo shared to them?

~~~
rokhayakebe
Not really. Let's say you walk in a club at 1AM, you get to see what the party
was like before you. Also clubs are usually concentrated in the same area, so
you may also see what happening in the other establishments.

~~~
WA
Do you really care at 1AM what the party in a club was an hour or two ago?

------
dstein

      "But how exactly is Color going to make “wheelbarrows of
      cash”... the company is still very early on, but it 
      eventually plans to offer businesses a self-serve platform
      for running deals and ads
    

$41 Million for a photo sharing app and this is the best they came up with?
You gotta be kidding me.

~~~
phlux
Here is some tinfoil for you...

Assuming they have a back-door API - this could be a freaking BOON for
intelligence gathering arms that are seeking to know the surrounds of anti
establishment types.

Further - wait until you apply spatial modeling capabilities (what was that MS
tech demo called?) where you can start building 3d navigable models of spaces
that all the data collected in that 100' radius allows.

Dont think the military is doing CRAZY things with optical intel:

"The system can also be used for general night vision; it can follow bats five
miles away in darkness."

<http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/02/72632>

the military now has autonomous robotic helicopters that can visually track
bullets in flight.

<http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/gigapixel-flyin/>

Now they just need the general public to be a part of the larger sensor intel
fabric.

~~~
jarin
[http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-
dramatic...](http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-
cut-agencys-cos,19753/)

~~~
phlux
Cool but take a look at the links that I posted which are years old. The fact
is that there are amazing technologies employed in certain military and
defense research projects that when coupled with todays consumer internet
applications have unbelievable capabilities... As a former employee of
Lockheed - I can assure you I am not the only person who believes this...

------
jfager
The underlying technology sounds like it was inspired by The Dark Knight -
sensors in cell phones streaming data back to a central server where it can
all be processed together into a cohesive view of what's going on in the
world.

The photo-sharing aspect just sounds like a hook to get consumers to actually
put it on their phones. I'd imagine that the bigger play is trying
understanding where people go, who they go there with, when they go, all of
that. Facebook has the data to reconstruct that information after the fact,
when people come home and upload their pictures, but this looks like an
attempt to see it unfold in real time.

Advertisers are already getting used to having this kind of information on the
web, with tracking cookies, twitter, and real-time ad auctions giving them
immediate, constant feedback from and control over people's online experience.
The company that figures out how to get a similar datastream out of and
targeted advertisements into meatspace is going to make mad money; if these
guys have a legitimate shot at doing it, $41M probably isn't so crazy.

On the other hand, just downloaded the app, and the first cut is kind of crap.

------
Cherian_Abraham
Disclaimer: Three of us are building a pet project that has some similarities
with Color. One big difference - all user generated content is private by
default.

That out of the way, we are certainly envious about the 100-200 million dollar
evaluation they got on day one. With about 4k spent so far, in our case and
with three of us chipping in any extra time we have (me - any extra time I
have outside of lurking here), we are still a couple of months away from a MVP
that will make us cringe ever so slightly when we see how far we will have to
go. Till then, no real sleep, and a lot of heartburn. Still, its good to see
Color validating some of what we do, but in the end, we both will have to
prove there is a market. We however can afford to fail early and not give any
VC's any heartburn, just our own families.

One thing is for sure, we do not plan to build sonar capabilities. We dont
have the knowhow and I am not sure that will be the make or break for us
anyway.

We also dont have the same pedigree, and therefore its clear that VC's will
not be snapping at our heels (But we go back six years, all three of us). We
are ok with that, but heck..41 million is a lot of money.

As the weeks peel away, I hope to share here on HN where we stand with the
product and hopefully even line up some kind souls here who will be willing to
beta test for us in return for some good karma. We cant afford to pay (please
refer back to the 4k burn total).

We however have some ideas on how we plan on monetizing. We plan on finding
out as early as we can, whether our ideas coincide with real needs from local
businesses.

Right now, I am shamelessly stopping people on the street, as they veer away,
ignore, stare, and sometimes stop and tell me what they need and what they
want. I do this as behind the scenes we toil away on building something that
in the end we can be proud of.

In all fairness, right now, they have a far more capable app, employing 9
times our current strength and vastly more capital and brain power. In the
end, may the best viable product and company win.

~~~
bbd37
Would love to chat, sounds like what we are doing with Pixamid.

------
arfrank
A couple of things stick out from this numbers wise:

* 7 founders (~14% split evenly, unlikely though)

* 41M raised

* Staff of 27 (obviously get some equity)

Some valuation math:

(Dilution) Pre-Money Post-Money (Founder dilution from ~14.28%)

    
    
      15% 232.3M 273.3M  12.1%
    
      20% 164M   205M    11.4%
    
      25% 123M   164M    10.7%
    
      30% 95.6M  136.6M  9.99%
    
      40% 61.5M  102.5M  8.57%
    
      50% 41M    82M     7.14%
    

I realize the percentages are essentially a wild guess, but I feel its a good
data point to add in.

~~~
rishi
sometimes its just not about the money.

~~~
dasil003
Of course it's nice to have someone do the work for you and present it like
this. You know, just in case it _is_ about the money.

------
dools
Hey Color dudes, if you're here - presumably those photos are being stored on
a server, can I browse a timeline of photos taken in my area? Like if I'm in
some place on a Saturday and want to see what it was like last Saturday, or
what it's like on a Friday night?

Think of a bar conversation, or a restaurant or something "It's quiet now but
check it out on a Friday night! It goes mental!".

------
nostromo
I'm curious how a proximity-based social network is going to keep from placing
me closer to my upstairs neighbor than, say, my brother on the other coast.

~~~
geoffw8
I'm curious as to why Facebook won't just add a "photos your friends have
taken around this place" feature and make these guys a distant memory

~~~
David
I think from Color's perspective, that's the idea -- only figuring that
"adding" implies an acquisition.

Actually, I guess it would depend on whether market validation is worth $10m
-- which I doubt, because it's just a feature to them, not a whole product.
Also, that's what interns are for, right?

------
hammock
Creepiest part- "it uses the camera to check for lighting conditions, and even
uses the phone’s microphone to ‘listen’ to the ambient surroundings."

The auto-social network based on proximity is awesome, though. I can't wait
for this and the creep factor will be gone in five years anyway since we are
all moving to a more open society.

~~~
brown9-2
What in the world does a picture app need to use my mic for?

~~~
jacoblyles
There have been some research projects which can use snapshots of the lighting
and sound around you to tell which building you are located in with 90%
accuracy. I.E. they can tell you are in the Starbucks and not the hardware
store next door. See "SurroundSense: Mobile Phone Localization via Ambience
Fingerprinting" in the proceedings of Mobicom 2009.

------
jonmc12
$1m for product, $3m for marketing, $37m for curation of a constant stream of
chatroullette-esque pornographic images?

~~~
danssig
This is a good point. If I'm sitting in a very densely populated area the odds
that some couple within 100' are exhibitionists must be pretty high.

------
VladRussian
>Nguyen has visions of fundamentally changing some aspects of social
interaction and local discovery with the app, which he considers part of the
so-called Post-PC movement.

webvan anybody?

------
olivercameron
Sounds technologically impressive, I'm just wondering if a dynamic friend list
is really an advantage over a static list. The last thing I want to be doing
when hanging out with friends is to be on my mobile phone checking out what
they've posted to Color. I'd rather, you know, interact with them in real
life. Maybe I missed a vital point of it, though.

~~~
jarin
The best part about a dynamic friend list: instead of friend requesting a cute
girl on Facebook, you need to take lots of photos of her and be near her
location all the time.

------
geoffw8
I'm gonna just go ahead and say this, does anyone else think this is a bit
silly? $41m.

There's no getting away from the fact this is just an app that shows you
photos taken near you, by strangers.

I just don't get it. I might be wrong, in 12 months I might be kicking myself,
I just cant imagine it.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Absolutely, but that is what makes the speculating fun. You have to ask, what
possible story could you spin around what they have that justifies $41M pre-
revenue. Even assuming a healthy multiple of 20, and investor exit of $250M
you're talking about projected earning of $12.5M with a gross margin of say
60% that's like $21M/yr in revenue. And I'm assuming an ABC round (which is to
say the would expect to not do another round prior to some liquidity 'event').

But they clearly have a good story and their investors are happy. So silly or
not, its the path they've chosen. It reminded me of this blog posting I ran
across:

[http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/02/50-questions-why-too-
much-...](http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/02/50-questions-why-too-much-money-
will-kill-your-company/)

------
melvinmt
I don't care what it does, $41 million at pre-launch for a mobile app is
ridiculous.

I sure believe they've hired a staff of 29 very talented people. But even if
you give each of them a salary of more than 1 million dollars it would still
take a year to burn that money.

------
nir
If you're trying to evaluate based on how useful it is, how cool, potential
income etc you're missing the point.

The goal is to flip this to the next sucker. A cool domain name, a celeb team,
an app that's bound to attract media hype (look for "The Color.com Revolution"
coming from Tehran University in 2012) - a year or two from now, provided the
bubble doesn't burst, Sequoia can unload this on Google or Facebook and make a
tidy profit.

------
avichal
Any "there isn't a bubble" believers want to comment on this one...?

~~~
greendestiny
I've previously been in the camp that there isn't a bubble. This seems like
its a valuation of 1 or 2 hundred million for a company that hasn't launched
yet. It's very hard to see how this deal could make sense in a traditional
way.

Don't get me wrong I think this sounds like an excellent idea that could turn
out to be an excellent company. It's just such a large amount of money to
raise that it kind of raises the question of what game the VCs and/or founders
are really playing.

It seems like at this point there might be a possibility of VCs planning on
Facebook and Twitter going public and either being acquired at an inflated
price with all that new capitalization or going public themselves in the wake.

~~~
mitjak
The thing that always gets me is that my local movie theatre is playing
terrible unoriginal flicks shot for a budget higher than that.

~~~
jonknee
At least they have a solid business plan (sell tickets, DVD/BluRay and PPV, TV
rights, etc). Color doesn't even accept revenue.

------
joshhart
41 million??? No part of me believed there was another bubble. About-face!

I'm considering building a clone on android and GPLing it. Who's in?

------
newhouseb
The article makes it seem as if Color hasn't launched yet but it actually has
(presumably today). I downloaded it and am pretty stunned at how confusing of
a UI $41 million can buy you.

~~~
kmfrk
Parts of it are downright broken: the swipe-to-delete makes the "delete"
button appear in a very awkward position.

I'll level with a lot of their choices for being "different", but they've gone
too far in some instances. It feels very un-iOS. Maybe because it's cross-
platform?

------
alain94040
Yes, it's mind boggling, but Sequoia has a problem: they have way too much
money under management. So when they find one idea they like, they invest like
crazy to push it to the extreme. Add senior VPs to the executive staff because
it will help go from a $100M company to a $1B company. That costs a lot of
money.

Likelihood of success? Low, but that's ok as long as it works once every 10
years.

------
nikcub
the Tyler Durden in me wonders how they are going to stop people broadcasting
cock shots to every person within 150 feet

------
jtesp
Proximity based advertising is cheaper and more efficient to smaller and local
businesses.

I've been working on something similar... $41M sure would be nice! For a group
of proven talent I can understand the investment, but $41M is pretty crazy.

------
guelo
Was anybody able to find the android app? They don't link directly to it and
searching for "color" is too generic. Which, btw, is a problem with their
name.

~~~
helton
Even on the iPhone, you can't find the app searching for "color". I followed
the link from color.com

~~~
tuhin
Problem with such a cool yet common domain is that you do not get shown at the
top unless you already are big.

Also how does it feel: " I am using color" vs "I am using Colors"?

------
crux
I'm using this right now and I still really don't get it. As far as I can
tell, this does the exact opposite of a social app: instead of bringing
together people with similar interests or relationships (like Instagram, for
all its faults), it exposes me to people who I have nothing in common with
except happening to be in the same neighborhood. I mean, am I right? Can that
possibly be the point? There is a 'group' composed of myself and three other
people I've never met, all of whom presumably live or work nearby—and then
another 'group' that's not apparently any different, except I haven't joined
it yet. I'll admit that some of my confusion is due to the completely opaque
interface.

EDIT: Ok, RTFA seems to indicate that these groups are fluid and intended to
form themselves according to whom you hang out with most often, so presumably
if I keep taking pictures then it will figure out who my friends are. That's a
neat idea, but unfortunately still moves against my instagram-a-like point
above: if we should have learned one thing about how people make friends in
the year 2011, it's that physical proximity doesn't really enter in to it.

------
wikyd
Is anybody else actually able to use the app? I got past the "take a picture
of yourself", but now I just see blank white screens everywhere.

~~~
flyosity
Same happened here. It's totally blank until more people around you actually
have & use the app. Which no one will do because... it's blank unless other
people use it. Classic chicken or the egg problem. I guess $41 million doesn't
buy you an answer.

------
tuhin
Ok, correct me if I am totally mark on this one but here are my takeaways:

1) The idea of creating groups on the fly to take photographs from a shared
location is what got the funding.

But using a tighter geofencing (remember how in Gowalla one had to stand at a
point to check in) the same can be brought in Instagram which _already_ has a
million or so members.

2)The photo is public for anyone in the vicinity of 100 feet or perhaps
everybody (sorry for missing that) but one does realise that it limits my
ability to share things with the world. I mean only in case when something is
cool would I want to share it with the world and other times stop short of
making myself look not so cool.

3) Local+Social+Mobile is great on paper but these are not the dimensions that
make a great app. It is the underlying mechanics. For a $41 million investment
and a overpriced domain name, they sure did not blow my mind off.

4) As far as the white noise of social apps is concerned it was the same
problem with all apps, facebook included if you were in the party early! Can't
hang them for that.

5)For the latent interest in finding photos around an area or location, there
always are foursquare/gowalla (sitting on huge data) and instagram with the
tags lately (remember #sxsw ?). You really think one would use them?

5) I remember Chris Dizon lately writing about investing in people over ideas
and it looks like with 7 rockstar cofounders, thatis what happened here. But
hey, who said anything about turning a blind eye to the idea?

6) Last, people around me wanting to see photos around them :) can just turn
around or shoot foursquare to find a lot more info over a longer period of
time than using the app, right?

Of course I am saying this all since I am a hater for seeing them receive such
a huge funding for no apparent (to me) reason!

------
jimboyoungblood
Is it April 1 already?

------
olivercameron
I wonder how much color.com cost?

~~~
aepstein
"Bill recently acquired the domain color.com for $350K" according to Steve
Thommes in the TC comments.

~~~
geoffw8
i might see if I can get colorapp.com for £3.50

~~~
bob12
Why don't you buy colorapp.com then Geoff

------
olivercameron
Isn't 7 founders a little excessive?

------
rooshdi
Well, at least they have enough money to market it down people's throats.
They're going to need every single dollar they can get to eventually get some
of those Facebook users to want to use this thing.

------
Aloisius
I can totally see people using this like Craiglist's missed connections...

------
bbd37
Since our tiny 4 person startup built a photo sharing app with very similar
core ideas, I was scared shitless this morning on first reading about Color.

That passed. Wrote it all up on the blog, but here is what I think they have
wrong and our Pixamid has right:

Privacy: I think most people want to more privacy on their photos, not less.
If the camera can sense who you are with (like Pixamid and Color try), by
default, share ONLY with those people. By default, Pixamid shares with only
your friends at he same place as you - you can choose to share with everyone
there too.

Network Effects: Color™ might be cool in a world where everyone uses Color™.
But we don’t see such a world anytime soon. People will use lots of different
apps: Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Picasa -hell, even Ofoto (thanks
Mom). We want to pull in your friends’ photos from any of these services,
automatically as much as possible. See our post below about the Instagram
magic we do; we’re dong a lot more of this cool stuff now.

Addressing a real problem: We are all taking more photos with our great phone
cameras. But we hate to organize our photos. And if we add in Friend photos,
it is even worse. Users of Pixamid get automagical photo organization as a
byproduct of using the app. Each set of photos, with place, event, and who you
were with. The things we will do with this in the future - can’t wait to show
everyone! But we believe that our solution will revolutionize how people share
photos online.

[http://blog.pixamid.com/post/4060807527/the-color-tm-
challen...](http://blog.pixamid.com/post/4060807527/the-color-tm-challenge)

------
tmugavero
I just tried using this app and it crashes every time I try to take a pic on a
fully updated iPhone 4, after a fresh restart. I'm not sure what they're doing
with that $41 million (besides buying trademarks and unoriginal domain names),
but there are some really talented people doing much more with much less. I'm
sure they'll fix it, but seriously guys...

The idea is interesting, but not defensible enough for them to stop a couple
of hackers with $15k from besting it.

------
kmfrk
I can see how people would find this valuable, but what does the company need
all that money for?

Do they just have a mean, scalable roadmap that we are unaware of?

------
dannyr
The link to the Android Market does not go to the app page. With a name like
'Color', it's almost impossible finding it in the market.

~~~
Cherian_Abraham
Try "Paradigm shifting" as a search keyword.

------
sfrench
I just fired it up on a couple devices, and it's not very intuitive. It's a
great idea, they just need some UX help now.

------
geoffw8
"Simultaneously use multiple iPhones and Androids to capture photos, videos,
and conversations into a group album. There’s no attaching, uploading, or
friending to do. "

It seems like all Facebook need to do is add a "Merge Albums" feature for use
between friends.

And I've come to the conclusion they're just after FB stock via acquisition.
Fair plan.

------
pkteison
So the idea here is that it will let me see more and be more in touch with...
the people who I already see and am in touch with? I'd rather do the exact
opposite - it's my friends in other states who I want digital tools to keep me
more in touch with.

------
jerome_bent
(This is offtopic, and probably best put in a AskHN thread, but) Why no love
for BlackBerry?

------
noamt
This is a great idea I think. It has the potential to fundamentaly change the
way people use photos, and because of the all media exposure they will get
(41M..) it might actually work. The only thing that's sad is that about 6
month ago I met a guy who had been trying to raise money for his idea, which
was very very similar, and all the big funds turned him down. So there's again
the repeting lesson of the value of who you are when you raise an idea and
money. Hope it'll work anyway - sometimes it's nice to know that your idea was
really good even if you're not the one who made it in the end.

------
joshu
<http://color.com/s/njo9KY>

~~~
epynonymous
meagan's a hotty.

~~~
epynonymous
why the downvote? this is not just some random comment that has nothing to do
with the article; i was merely making a social comment via performance art
about how easy it is to stalk with this tool. meagan's picture can be found at
the 8AM mark, she's an attractive woman and what caught my initial reaction.

as an aside, there should be full disclosure and responsibility for all
hackernews users, who down voted me?

------
Brizz
This is an app built by engineers in the valley for engineers in the valley.
This "bubble" project is truly a bubble. You need to step outside your own
experience and understand if your products are viable to others who aren't
you. Walk around anywhere that's not SF or NY and this app will be useless for
at least the first year. And who can can make sense of this UI other than an
engineer? Engineering breakthrough? Yes. Useful mobile tool? No.

------
yaix
"... and even uses the phone’s microphone to ‘listen’ to the ambient
surroundings ..."

Yeah, I definitely want an app that is listening to what I say all of the
time. Great idea.

The automatic Social Graph based on proximity is a good idea. But doesn't it
make you best friends with all of your neightbors (at home and work) and other
random people you just happen to walk by or meet every day?

And why would I want to see pics of a restaurant that some friend sits in?

------
danest
<http://www.color.com/>

I am not sure why the article did not have the link for the application.

edit - never mind they updated the article.

------
nickgeiger
Sounds interesting, but shouldn't they have a huge user base before this kind
of money comes in? There are a lot of interesting things going on in this
space (and with this app), but minus user base and revenue, I just can't help
but wonder if this kind of funding is an example of the bubble that we may
well be in. Kudos to them if I'm wrong and they're actually able to mint cash
from this app.

------
sown
> That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it
> was taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see
> the photograph listed in a stream alongside other photos that have recently
> been taken in the vicinity.

How does that algorithm work? Is that like a point-in-a-polygon problem? It
could be lots of updates as to who is near what, etc. I just don't know.

------
pedalpete
Poor title on the part of TC, but I think it is important to remember that
when Sequoia invested in Google, everybody thought search was dead, tech had
just taken a bath, and the founders were an unknown.

This group is at the very popular intersection of photo-sharing, social
network, real-time, local/location and I'm sure more. They have a rock-star
proven team, and tech is a popular investment now.

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thatusertwo
All embrace big brother!

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thatusertwo
sharing pictures all around you, tagging your location, listening to the
ambient sounds around it, centralized server.... anyone else see this as a
serious privacy fail.... I'm still going try it out, but just saying.

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g123g
What about the spammers or weirdos sending their images to an unsuspecting
crowd. I will be wary of seeing photos shared by unknown people in a public
and crowded place like Times Square. And what about children using this app?
Can they watch all uncensored, unfiltered images any stranger wants to share?

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SideSwipe
So, I wonder how long until someone is going to use this to create a real-time
location based hot or not?:P

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sriramk
Just played with it. I was intrigued by the sign-up process - it only asked
for my first name and photo. Is it doing something magical to tie my'account'
to my name and photo? Or is the user name a much 'looser' association and not
something you have a strong hold over?

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johnrob
What has YC (and every other prominent investor) been emphasizing lately? That
the team is the most important part of the deal. And that team looks rock
solid, arguably more so (on paper) than google did in 1999.

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Cherian_Abraham
True. But does that alone deserve a 100 million dollar evaluation? I dont know
enough tech luminaries who can constitute a team that can command such a high
price tag, on launch day none the less. What do I know? My own wife wouldnt
put down $100 on me to win :)

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tuhin
_My own wife_ is a funny term. Redundancy at it's maximum.

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tuhin
Why the downvote?

It is redundant and I just dropped a note of English usage. If one has to
emphasis, it would be "Even my wife...".

Just like saying Round circle or Straight line!

Or is the point of commenting only when you add hacking info?

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gjm11
There's nothing wrong with "my own wife". (A Google Books search quickly turns
up "my own wife", "my own child", "my own father", and "my own mother" in
Dickens, for instance.)

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atirip
So you take pictures of others at their free time and publish them without
consent to the world and call it social? I call it paparazzi. Isn't paparazzi
one of the most admired and respected profession? :-)

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rythie
It's pretty difficult to search for this on the iPhone App. Store, I went
through pages and pages on a search for 'color' before going to color.com and
clicking the link. Will most people do this though?

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elvirs
Let's say I'm having great time with my girlfriend, other friends and their
girlfriends, etc. in a restaurant. Why would I wan to share our photos with
the creepy guys next table?

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pramanat
Very cool and a bit creepy at the same time. I'm thinking about Hitchcock's
Rear Window. I'm able to see what my office building neighbors are doing (I
think...).

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ashbrahma
Looks like they spent most of the money on the domain name. Color.com is now
live..

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ssharp
Finance fail?

If you discount the investment to 1999 value, it's under what Sequoia gave
Google.

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dot
that much money sounds ridiculous, but there's definitely something very cool
about proximity-based social networks and these guys now have the time and
cash to find the right application.

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aracena
"And what I'm interested in is investing in people." -Arthur Rock

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harscoat
$41M to spend in what?

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zyfo
With all this excessive photo-sharing going on, I think we'll soon find
ourselves wanting to counter the adage "A picture is worth a thousand words"
with its opposite.

