The Apple Core

Jason D. O'Grady & David Morgenstern

Color: New social photo app arrives for iOS

By | March 24, 2011, 12:11pm PDT

Summary: Armed with $41M in pre-launch venture Color Labs today launched its social photo-sharing app, Color. That’s more than Sequoia Capital gave Google pre-launch.

Armed with $41M in pre-launch venture from Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank (which is more than they gave Google) Color Labs today launched its social photo-sharing app, Color.

In additional to launching on the App Store Color Labs also purchased the domain color.com for a reported $350,000 where it has staked its virtual claim. (Update: It bought colour.com too, price TBD).

The app’s concept is ridiculously simple, and probably best described by the simple description on the App Store:

  • Use Color to take photos and videos with other people who have iPhones within 150 ft to create a group album.
  • For parties, play dates, lunch? You get their photos, they get yours.
  • Share any album with Twitter and Facebook.
  • Color is a social network for your iPhone.

I’m a fan of Instagram, so I’ll give it a shot. Although the reviews are mixed in the App Store, the app’s been out less than 24 hours and we need to give it some time to mature. Besides some nitwits don’t read the requirements then give apps one-star ratings, because they can’t read.

An Android version of Color is also available.

Update: I agree with Lockergnome’s Kelley Clay, Color could be a little creepy. Check the fella in the first screenshot on their App Store page. Color might want to replace that shot — if it expects to get any female users whatsoever.

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Topics

Jason O'Grady is a journalist and author specializing in mobile technology. He has published six books on Apple and mobile gadgets and his PowerPage blog has been publishing for over 15 years.

Disclosure

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady is the creator and editor of O'Grady's PowerPage, which has been publishing mobile technology news since 1995. He maintains an advertising relationship with the following legacy advertisers on the PowerPage:

  • Amazon Associates
  • Google Adsense
  • Tekserve
  • Advertising on the PowerPage is brokered by a third-party agency (BackBeat Media) and he recuses himself from these negotiations.

Biography

Jason D. O'Grady

Jason D. O'Grady developed an affinity for Apple computers after using the original Lisa, and this affinity turned into a bona-fide obsession when he got the original 128 KB Macintosh in 1984.

He started writing one of the first Web sites about Apple (O'Grady's PowerPage) in 1995 and is considered to be one of the fathers of blogging. He has been a frequent speaker at the Macworld Expo conference and a member of the conference faculty. He also co-founded the first dedicated PowerBook User Group (PPUG) in the United States.

After winning a major legal battle with Apple in 2006, he set the precedent that independent journalists are entitled to the same protections under the First Amendment as members of the mainstream media.

O'Grady is the author of The Nexus One Pocket Guide, The Droid Pocket Guide, The Google Phone Pocket Guide, and The Garmin nuvi Pocket Guide (Peachpit Press), the author of Corporations That Changed the World: Apple Inc. (Greenwood Press), and a contributor to The Mac Bible (Peachpit Press). In addition, he has contributed to numerous Mac publications over the years, including MacWEEK, Macworld, and MacPower (Japan).

When he's not writing about Apple for ZDNet at The Apple Core, he enjoys spending time with his family in New Jersey.

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RE: Color: New social photo app arrives for iOS
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 11th Oct
You definitely should have a spherical of applause to your private publish plus much more specifically, your blog normally. Certainly superior chestnut ugg high-quality resources!
grasp it.

Is it supposed to be "creepy" for women because the ladies on the photo make funny faces? (And how is that could be "creepy" for a party anyway?)

Or is it because the bearded guy may **seem** to look at other lady's breasts? (Hint: he actually does not.)

Or am I missing something?
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RE: Color: New social photo app arrives for iOS
Knowles2 Updated - 24th Mar 2011
Sound like cool app. An a cool concept. I look forward to seeing where they take it.

An for the ladies, I am sure they will give them something to look at on there front page in time.
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The bearded guy has "stalker" written all over his face! They need to replace that photo.
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whatever
dgurney 27th Mar 2011
Sad that you live your life in fear.
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WOW. Maybe I'm missing the whole "picture" but $41 Mil for a group photo app. I'm not a young adult or teen and may not understand the value but I still find it hard to believe what the VC put into this almost featureless app.
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FAIL
mattmuir 25th Mar 2011
So, you go to a party, and someone snaps some photos of "Fred" that Fred wouldn't be too proud of in the light of day. Some random sitting next to that person on a train can access those photos? I can feel the lawsuits coming already...
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I don't get it...
RangerJimK 25th Mar 2011
Ok, so I have an iPhone and it already takes photos and videos in color, which I can then email to friends or family. Or, I can upload to my computer, retouch to remove phone poles or signs from people's heads and put them in my FB album for family and selected friends to see. Hel, I can even take group photos!

So why do I need Color (even if it is free)?

Or does the blurb, "Use Color to take photos and videos with other people who have iPhones within 150 ft to create a group album." mean that, if I'm within 150' of someone with this app, that I'd get whatever they took on *my* iPhone?!? And what if the teenager happens to be taking some sexy photos of her and a couple of their girlfriends to send to someone while I was walking by outside. Would (or could) I get these transmitted to my iPhone as well (if I had Color installed)?

Jim
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@RangerJimK Anyone please correct me if I am wrong. Let's say that there's a high school graduation, and everyone is taking photos, because it is fun for the children to see their peers in formal attire. Naturally, they would want to share these photos, so with color, they'd load up the app and take photos from their phone. As soon as they shoot, the picture is uploaded to color. Essentially every photo taken at the graduation with the color app will be placed in one album for everyone who was at the graduation to see. If some teenage girls did take some sexy photos, then you'd be a lucky man (I said a high school graduation, so I guess they'll be 18, and I am assuming that you're heterosexual) if you walked outside when that happened, because you will get it as soon if not before their friends will. I sense some lawsuits coming up.
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@aminy23, ahh - kinda like my having the photobucket app on my iPhone and, after taking photos at my granddaughter's swearing-in ceremony into the USGS, (to use a real world occasion in my life), instead of having to click on the photobucket app and manually uploading the photos, Color would do it automatically, yes? Thanks, that clears it up.

And for the hypothetical graduation party that I happened to walk by, well yes, I am happily hetro and wouldn't mind getting some sexy photos by accident - so long as the senders were indeed at least 18!

And I can also see some potential lawsuits. The whole thing sounds like something that Google (with their casual disregard of privacy) might have come up with. Me, I'll think that I'll stick with uploading to photobucket, facebook or elsewhere *after* I clean my photos up. :smile:
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That's not what this does.
dgurney 27th Mar 2011
But there are other apps for that.
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crap
gundam_0083 25th Mar 2011
gimmick. use the fund for something better
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Cool,
I was part of a research project in 2006 (pre-iphone-era) where we did a VERY similar application. Check video here:
http://vimeo.com/5076466
Always nice to see research ideas growing up.
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Well done! Thank you very much for professional templates and community edition
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0 Votes
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RE: Color: New social photo app arrives for iOS
jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812 11th Oct
You definitely should have a spherical of applause to your private publish plus much more specifically, your blog normally. Certainly superior chestnut ugg high-quality resources!

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