Fly Or Die: How Color Became The Ishtar Of iPhone Apps

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

Erick Schonfeld is the Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. He oversees the editorial content of the site, helps to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produces TCTV shows, and writes daily for the blog. He is also the father of three adorable children. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular... → Learn More

Ever since Color launched its photo sharing app, the $41 million startup has been having a rough time. John Biggs and I reviewed it on Fly or Die back in March, when CEO Bill Nguyen joined us to defend the app ( you can watch that episode below, we both gave it a “die”). The company continues to struggle, so we decided to revisit our assessment in the new episode above.

Things don’t seem to be getting much better for the company. Nobody is using the app. Co-founder Peter Pham left, or was fired, according to CEO Bill Nguyen, who also told the New York Times that the company is going back to the drawing board. It might scrap its photo app altogether in favor of, well, something big and vague. According to the NYT article:

Mr. Nguyen outlined an ambitious plan to compete with Apple, Google and Facebook by tying together group messaging, recommendations and local search, all while making money through advertising.

Okay. Good luck with that.

Their first idea didn’t work. It happens. At least they still have a lot of money left to try something else. We’ve analyzed this from every angle by now. But how many do-overs do they get? Can they overcome such a spectacularly bad launch? Or is Color doomed to become the Ishtar of iPhone apps?

Watch more episodes of Fly or Die here.

Company: Color Labs
Website: color.com
Launch Date: 2010
Funding: $41M

Color is a social app for photos. You take photos and then the photos appear on the fly with other photos in your vicinity. You get to see the photos your friends are taking as well as other people within 100 feet of your photo. The app will group photos based on who your friends are so you are more likely to see photos that you are interested in. The service is available on Android or iPhone.

Learn more

Sponsored Ads

Sponsored Ads

Sponsored Ads

Upcoming Events

SXSW 2012

Austin, Texas

Disrupt NY 2012

New York City

Disrupt SF 2012

San Francisco, CA