Using something the company calls a "multi-lens," the app "intelligently identifies nearby smartphones, whether at a local park or at a concert, using advanced proximity algorithms" and instantly shares photos, videos, comments and likes with them. The company has six patents pending. Nguyen explains that Color can ingest and analyze four times the amount of data than Google did in its early days. This justifies the $41 million investment. "Lots of people are trying to create location-based services and using GPS," said Nguyen.
"The problem with GPS is that it doesn't work." Color does things differently by collecting these various data points from the phone's sensors and then looking for proximity by looking for identical inaccuracies. So, is color just another social photo sharing app? What Ngyuen calls the "elastic" social graph is another patent. With Color's "elastic" social graph, these ties can fade and disappear. Color's ability to accurately determine location and user proximity is what makes this sort of social graph - an implied, impermanent and elastic social graph - even possible. We will be tracking this startup for you.
Bill Nguyen is a technology entrepreneur who founded Lala.com, Color, and Onebox. Lala.com was one of the early, licensed online music lockers. Onebox is an all-in-one inbox, designed to retrieve voicemails, faxes, and e-mail, and has recently added multimailbox voicemail.
Color.com: The Next Google?