UPDATED 14:22 EDT / OCTOBER 18 2012

Color Failed Because of Bad Press

Color Labs, the photo-sharing app founded by serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen, is in a rocky place at the moment.  Since last year’s $41 million series A funding, we haven’t heard much about the mobile app, but rampant speculation indicates that something is amiss.  Is Color shutting down, or are they being acquired by Apple?

Color Labs is a mobile photo-sharing app unlike any other, as it relies on people’s proximity to one another.  You won’t be able to search for your friends on Color unless they are near you.  So it’s like looking through the window of your neighbor’s house.  You can get to know them by looking around, but you don’t have to actually meet them.  Color users can talk to each other, but the connection they form will be erased after a two week period unless you continue browsing that connection’s photos.

According to reports, Nguyen has been out of the office for some months due to a falling out with the company’s board, and since the app hasn’t been successful enough to justify over $40mm in pre-launch funding, they’re thinking of shutting down operations.

But execs from Color Labs stated that they will just be winding down operations, not actually shutting down.  And even investors, including Sequoia Capital, have released statements saying that the company isn’t shutting down.  Other sources claim that Ngyuen is selling the company to Apple, a convenient exit strategy that worked quite well for his previous startup Lala, acquired by Apple in 2009.

But sources stated that even before he had a falling out with the company’s board, he was already looking to sell Color, turning to Apple’s Senior Vice President Internet Software and Services, Eddy Cue.  Using Color’s resource team, he made app prototypes that he showed to Cue and other potential investors, but that was scratched.  Then they made a new version of Color, but never really released it.  So Color’s path has been a rather crooked one, and investors as well as their board members have gotten antsy in light of recent developments.

TheNextWeb reported that Apple has already acquired Color Labs.  As for the reason for the acquisition, it’s more of a technology and patent buy, like Color’s ‘elastic’ social graph and patents related to GPS location and battery saving plus they have patent applications for “sharing content among a group of devices” and “user device group formation,” which would go well with Apple’s effort in doing something better than NFC.

Here to discuss more on Color’s sad story is SiliconAngle founder John Furrier, who attributes bad press to some of Color’s woes.  And click here for more analysis on Color’s  rumored acquisition.


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU