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Comment by dlsspy | Hacker News Reader

Can someone summarize the vision here? Everything I've seen has made this look like a weekend project (except for the $41MM thing).

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I think people are missing one of the key features. This is described in the video here http://vimeo.com/21413899, but not discussed in any article I've seen.

When you turn on Color it starts recording all of the pictures that others in your local area are taking. All of those photos _are stored in your "visual diary"_ forever!

This is a "life recorder" app. Remember this: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-09/p... ?

In the future you'll be making a documentary of your life just by moving through space, and I think that's a beautiful concept. Your grandkids will be able explore how you lived your day to day life as witnessed by those around you.

I suspect the key feature that has the VCs excited is the concept of "implicit social networking". Which is, rather than relying on explicit, self nominated constructed social networks this will grow the network organically - Color will end up with a huge implicit social graph that has a unique authenticity to it (these are not people who are pretending to know each other, they are people who really actually get together).

Or they are people who just happened to be in the same neighborhood. I don't really get how that creates a social graph that's any more valuable than people you've explicitly added. Just because I'm in a neighborhood today doesn't mean that I'll want to connect with (or even be in the same place at the same time) the other folks whose pictures I can see in the app.

It's a fun concept, but after using it for a bit, I'm still trying to think of why I would care. If I can only see pictures from the neighborhood, I'm unlikely to see anything that I can't already see with my naked eyes.

The app: take pictures with your phone, instantly/automatically upload them to the cloud, meanwhile see what other pics other people nearby are taking.

The experience: a frenzy of sharing entertaining photos and having fun anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

The reality: a classier, more respectable and 'innocent' rival to Grindr.

The money: push advert pics into the localized photo streams, even making them geographically contextual, exposing them to an already captive audience, who may even react and start talking about it (the advertised product/service) on the spot.

Actually, have to admit, I really like the idea.

I think the idea is good, I just don't understand why anything you've mentioned requires VC at all, much less that magnitude.

The thing will only be great if lots of people use it, and it works seemlessly. For THAT, surely you do need quite a lot of capital (marketing and hosting/bandwidth). They could slowly and organically grow the userbase, but to have any hope of fast-forwarding through that phase, large funding is the only option, no? Maybe also deals with phone manufacturers and carriers.

The money: push advert pics into the localized photo streams, even making them geographically contextual, exposing them to an already captive audience, who may even react and start talking about it (the advertised product/service) on the spot.

I wasnt aware of this aspect... I must say - I think it is brilliant if it works, as the geographically contextual adverts has so far been an uncracked nut.

Further - imagine a social groupon-like play where your pics of the ambiance and blast you and your friends are having while eating at [#ThisRestaurant] BECOME the ad and coupon to entice others to come and eat there... click on this photostream of [#ThisRestaurant], watch it then see a deal for you too coming here and having such a greeat experience for a discount coupon...

Yes, they could charge for 'commercial' accounts, so that resteraunts etc. are allowed to push coupon/adverts into the local stream.

The money, part 2: paid accounts that allow you to hide the implicit activity track that you never asked all these strangers to record. Dont have an account? Too bad, your face is out there on everyone else's phones.

Still not sure I understood: I assume the point is to share (currently only photos) with people near you in both space and time. Why would you do that? You're right there. You can directly see them right?

Or is it something where you go somewhere and you can see photos taken at this location 3 months ago or something? (ie, they use space but not time for proximity)

People are wierd. I don't even look at facebook photos but other people are obsessed with them. Then there's those sites where people (young women mostly) look at photos of people going in to local nightclubs (ie they actually pose for the shot then it's uploaded), and they spend time looking at what fashion items people were wearing. Anyway I imagine in this case the focus is on right there, right then, and the whole thing will be driven by flirtation. Think about it like using technology to broaden the radius of effective flirtation from a few meters to a few dozen meters.

Having actually looked at the thing on App Store, I realized that it also solves very nicely a classic problem of social photography: bunch of friends/family at a gathering, all taking pictures, 'you take one with me in it' etc., but then everyone goes home with a separate set of photos.

Sure, Facebook, Bebo etc. alievate that problem somewhat by having people upload their photos and sharing with their friends list, so you might eventually get to see everyone's photos. Assuming they bothered to upload and tag. But Color guarantees that everyone walks home with The Definitive Album for that event, with no extra effort required.

From a user perspective, that's a pretty big win. Just put Color on your grand-dad's phone and suddenly he gets to join the fun, without the whole registering/tagging/uploading/friending/browsing rigmarole.

Sounds like a good idea but will people use it long term? I doubt it. The only draw to use the app all the time is for entertainment. If people don't get entertainment at least 80%* then they will probably stop using it.

*I just made that figure up obviously but I hope you get my point.

"... While your first name appears on your posts, there is no password and no friending. So unlike Facebook, the notion of limiting private content to a friend network doesn't exist. In the future, the app will be able to intuit relationships based on whom its users spend time with regularly because it collects data constantly. ..." [0]

I'll take a stab at the vision. If you can get a lot of users the tools to give away key emotional & identity information freely you might just be able to take on Facebook. This might explain the valuation & choice of the mobile platform and why the pedigree of the founder (ex Apple) matters.

A consumer device to share information easier for undisclosed "X" use for "Y" clients. The key part of the vision is the generated information, location, a users connections, the verified identity of the user and money. A mobile phone is for all intensive purposes a credit card. These raw functions are made possible by the mobile device and the front and back-end software.

[0] 'Ex-Apple executive takes on Facebook with photo app', AP ~ http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/exappl...

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