Social Media

Color's Ambitious Photo App Seeks to Reinvent Mobile Social Networking



The app, which made its debut just a few hours ago on iPhone (and very soon on Android), is best described as public photo and video-sharing app for groups. Yet it doesn't have the typical friending or following that you'll find on Facebook, Twitter, Path or Instagram. Instead, Color chooses which pictures you see based on your location and how often you're sharing photos with someone else. Every photo and video is public, not only to the people you consider your friends, but to any stranger within your proximity.

When you launch Color, the app delivers a stream of content from anybody within 100 feet of your location, as well as anybody within your "elastic network." In Color, you don't choose your network; instead, the app determines your social network by figuring out who you're hanging out with on a regular basis. Every time two friends use the app near each other, Color's algorithms detect it and use it to essentially rank your friendship. You can also curate your elastic network through actions such as asking the app to "Show More" of a particular friend or liking/commenting on a friend's picture.

Keeping your elastic network takes work, though; if you don't see a friend for a while, his or her pictures start to lose their color until that person eventually disappears from your network.

The result is that whenever you fire up the app, you can see what pictures are being taken around you, as well as the pictures friends in your elastic network are taking. Not only that, but the app will show you the pictures being taken by others within 100 feet of your friends. The app even has the ability to pull pictures that your friends took in the past, so long as you're standing in the same location in which the pictures were taken. Imagine visiting the Statue of Liberty and then being able to magically see your best friend's pictures from a different trip three year ago.

It's the ultimate voyeur app for those who simply want to know what's happening with their close friends or that cute neighbor that just happens to live next door.

A Colorful World?

It's hard to pinpoint the best use case for this app because it is so unique in design. You can use it to share photos among a group without having to pass the phone around, or you can use it to keep a visual log of not only your life, but of the lives of those you see the most. It could potentially be a new way to meet someone at the other end of the bar — I used it to meet a neighbor. I haven't had enough time with the app to really figure out its potential, but I have a feeling I'm only scratching the surface of its capabilities.

One key aspect of Color is that every photo is public, so if you decide to take sexy pictures with the app, then everybody potentially has access to them. For those who like to keep their personal lives private, this is not the app for you. In a lot of ways, Color is the polar opposite of Path, the mobile photo-sharing app that only lets you share pictures and videos with 50 friends.

The app is packed with a ton of technology; for example, it doesn't simply use the GPS to figure out your location, but it uses your camera to determine lighting and your microphone to hone in on ambient noise. By matching these environmental conditions, Color is shockingly accurate at determining who's in the room with you and even where they are in relation to your position.

It's no surprise that Color is so advanced technologically; it has a team of co-founders led by Bill Nguyen, the founder of Lala, acquired by Apple in 2009 for a reported $80 million. D.J. Patil, the former Chief Scientist at LinkedIn, serves as the company's head of product. Another recognizable co-founder is Peter Pham, formerly of Photobucket, BillShrink and Trinity Ventures.

Speaking of venture capital firms, Color already has a whopping $41 million in the bank, including $25 million from Sequoia Capital, $9 million from Bain Capital and $7 million from Silicon Valley Bank. The company already has about 30 employees, but intends to triple that number very soon. It even owns the domain and the Twitter account @Color.

These firms are making a huge bet on Nguyen's vision and the team he has assembled. Color needs to not only capture millions of users, but it also has to find a way to monetize them. The potential for highly-targeted, location-based advertising is there, but Color still has a lot to hurdles to overcome and a lot of users to acquire before it can even begin talking about revenue.

What do you think of Color? Is it a game-changer or destined to drowned out by the sea of photo-sharing applications already on the market? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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