

Color is Surprisingly Innovative But Will Still Fail - waxman
http://blog.waxman.me/why-color-is-innovative-but-will-surely-fail

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andresmh
This application made me feel dumb. I downloaded it to my Droid. It asked me
for my name. Then it asks me to take a self-portrait, I do it, it shows the
picture, I click OK. It goes back to the camera UI ready to take another
picture. Uh? OK, I repeat this a couple of times until I quit the application.

I give it another try. I open the app. It now it shows my name and the
colorful shutter. I click the shutter, I take a picture, it shows the picture
and the options [cancel] and [ok]. I click [ok]. It shows the camera UI
_again_ ready to take more pictures. No indication on what is happening. I
click cancel and I get a completely white screen.

I wanted to at least see what was the big fuzz about this app but I feel like
for a pretty savvy person like me to feel this frustrated is not a good way to
start. Maybe the iOS version is easier to use.

~~~
dilap
I had exactly the same experience on the iphone. I guess you have to be with a
group of people all using the app for it to make sense? If so, they need to
communicate it much more clearly!

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rubergly
I still think it's going to fail because they've made it clear, before a user
base has been 'hooked', that their main focus is data mining. Usually users
are getting utility before they're aware of the privacy issues, and at that
point they're willing to give up that privacy. Becoming a Color user means
giving up your privacy to get non-existent utility (because of the issues of
relying on scale which the article talks about); maybe the utility would be
there if everyone were using the app, but from a game theory perspective, the
optimal behavior for each potential user is to not adopt the app (so long as
everyone else hasn't already).

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jh3
I am kind of hoping Color takes off, becomes awesome, and is used everywhere
just because of all the bad crap being written about it.

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terryjsmith
It's clear that the popular thing to do is rag on the first launched concept,
and yet everyone still seems to be ignoring the team. I doubt Sequoia, bubble
times or not, is likely to back a buzzword friendly concept if they didn't
believe the team could make it into something worth a multiple or the $41M
investment. I'd say it's a little early to judge whether the concept or the
product will take off, but I think the team will build and iterate Color into
something valuable.

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neutronicus
I think everyone's overestimating the importance of traction. If they have the
technology to monetize a large user base better than anyone else can, and they
have the technology to improve a large user base's experience in ways that no
one else can, it doesn't _matter_ if they have a largeuser base, because other
people do, and those same people have tons of money.

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mhiceoin
Finally some sanity. Color, is using a easy entry point of photo sharing. All
they need is proof of concept and boom, can any spell licensing!!!

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mhiceoin
Down vote away. Let me clarify.

Think core feature of the operating system rather than a specific
application...

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openczun
"Even with the ever-increasing prominence of iPhones and Androids, it is
exceedingly unlikely that you'll be at a location where multiple people own
those phones, have downloaded color, and are using the app at that precise
moment"

The only hard part is getting people to install it. Once it is installed push
notifications or constant polling in the background can tell you when others
nearby are using it -- I imagine a combination of fine GPS, WiFi SSID
comparisons, and cell tower IDs would fine tune it. Of course, not being a
mobile developer I don't know whether the last two are even obtainable by a
third-party app.

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minalecs
At this time the utility of the app doesn't justify a user putting up with any
of these processes.

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maurycy
Given geotargeted ads, such as Google AdWords, it takes flooding a city, or a
district, with ads for an hour to create an impression of high saturation.

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Tycho
They could make deals to pre-install the app on handsets, perhaps.

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neodude
Just because you pre-install something on my phone doesn't mean I'm going to
use it. Think pre-installing AOL on those Dell laptops..

~~~
Tycho
Unless you make it the default camera app, I guess. (Which still doesn't
guarantee people will click the 'Color' button once they've taken their pic,
or keep it enabled in the settings, but it's still a big head start.)

