Comment by bradleyland | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bradleyland | Hacker News Reader

"Not since Google have we seen this"

I'm sorry, but this is the biggest line of bullshit I've seen in a while. Here's the thing: no one saw Google early on. Google happened, more or less, organically. They implemented a better algorithm and gained a lot of users by providing better results.

Color appears to be Instagram + location awareness. Awesome. I can't wait to use it, but to call it "Google" is just ridiculous.

I'm skeptical that this product is even going to be a success -- if I'm 150' from someone, why not just walk over to them, snap a group photo, and post it to my Twitter/Facebook/Whatever -- and even more skeptical that someone like Facebook won't clone the idea, roll it out to their 500 million users. Instagram already supports location detection. How long until "near me" shows up as a feed option?

Here's the real rub. Currently, there are 143 one & two-star reviews in the App Store. There are 49 four & five-star reviews. That's not good. Anyone claiming this is the next Google is either straight up lying to generate interest (It's the Next Google!™) or has no idea what they're talking about.

Give the Sequoia guys the benefit of doubt. They probably have seen something more (related to the product) that the rest of us havent or might be privy to other features in the pipeline. Obviously, they're a bunch of smart people who have backed some of the biggest companies in the tech landscape.

In short, dont be so hasty to judge.

While I do think that $41mm is crazy, I agree with unohoo. If they're getting that much money from Sequoia, you can sure as hell bet they're not investing in "just another photo sharing app".

Part of $41mm is because of the team, but I'm betting most of the money is because of the long term, ambitious vision they have for it. But to get there, they have to release a decidedly short term vision product and build from there. This is probably just the launching pad.

But still, $41mm before any sort of traction or any proof of a userbase is really crazy

Or... the bubble is nearer than we think.

The bubble or the pop?

I've been hearing that about Twitter for years now, and I'm still waiting.

twitter is internet plumbing. it doesn't matter if it makes money, it drives ridiculous amounts of ancillary commerce. There's plenty of people that are willing to pay money to keep it alive because it serves their business. Infrastructure tends to be money losing businesses when they start; think youtube and more recently, facebook.

Most physical infrastructure is insanely costly to create in the first place. If a utility charges too much money for your liking and you don't have a couple billion to compete with them, tough shit.

The infrastructure of Facebook and YouTube and Twitter could be replicated by a small team of smart developers in a matter of months, probably costing only a few million dollars. The only thing they have going for them is network effects, which are less powerful than we think when there is a viable competitor (e.g. MySpace being overtaken by Facebook).

While I am no longer active on Twitter, I cant deny the fact that Twitter has become a massive distribution channel for content,links etc. There are two other such online distribution channels -- Google and Facebook. And they make lot,lot of money.

Twitter might still not have a viable business model, but they can experiment (now that they have a huge user base and data) and try to find one. While its not easy and obvious at times to find a viable business model, just reaching the sheer distribution scale as Twitter's is a huge hurdle in itself that very few incumbents will ever reach.

I'm not arguing that - Twitter has grown much more than I expected. I was referring to the "I'm sure they know things us mere mortals are not privy to" argument.

Well, if you invested $25mm, saying such a thing would be perfectly reasonable.

Also, keep in mind the context of the quote.. it's not referring to the current state of the product. There's probably a lot more we haven't seen from this article.

"They told us that every 10 years or so a company and a marketplace and an opportunity come together that’s transformative"

> if I'm 150' from someone, why not just walk over to them, snap a group photo, and post it to my Twitter/Facebook/Whatever

What if you're all at a concert taking pictures of the band and crowd? Or you're at the beach and many people are taking pictures of the same beautiful sunset? You now have access to multiple photos without having had to coordinate with the strangers around you.

It actually seems like a somewhat compelling tool for capturing events.

> Currently, there are 143 one & two-star reviews in the App Store. There are 49 four & five-star reviews.

My guess is a lot of angry geeks, since they're all who know about it so far.

>My guess is a lot of angry geeks, since they're all who know about it so far.

Actually I think it's the fact that the app seems to be a buggy POS according to a large number if people. I think there are a lot of people in the startup/geek world who aren't happy with the extremely high valuation and the all the hoopla around them, but I doubt they would sabotage their app rating intentionally.

Supposedly a lot of the bugs are for somewhat older iOS versions, so I wasn't seeing them. I figured the "buggy POS" stuff was overhyped, which it seems to not be.

However, I think most of the people who know about Color are hackers and startup junkies, who all seem to have a negative inclination towards using it. So it still wouldn't surprise me if the bad reviews were overwhelming from that crowd.

I believe that the interest from these investors does not lie in the consumer facing functionality of sharing photos but the ability to target locations and inject relevant advertisements into this stream of photographs. The large amount of user centric information which this app is collecting is very attractive to market research groups which pay a lot of money. These are two revenue streams heavily utilized by google and facebook.

It's reasonably likely that a good portion of the 1 star reviews aren't opinions of the app, but are rather expressions of disapproval of the funding/ecosystem/bubble situation.

Have you used the app? It a terrible first experience. I used it last night and had no one around me. In New York City. During dinner time. Most people probably open the app, don't get it / don't see people on it, and never open the app again

I have used the app. I saw pictures from ~6-7 of my friends at a happy hour party I was at. Then, just now, I reopened the app and saw some funny yet interesting pictures of neighbors cooking.

Maybe it's just cause I live in SF.

Not Since Google* Have We Seen This...

... Google Wave, that is

http://paradoxdgn.com/junk/avatars/trollface.jpg

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