"Color", a new cellphone-based social network
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 25 March 2011, 19:45 IST
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New York: Bill Nguyen, the prolific entrepreneur whose previous company was overtaken by Apple Inc in 2009, is storming back into business with a new cellphone-based social network and is all set to cross swords with Facebook. His latest offering “Color” is a free smartphone-based application which would be featured on iPhones and Android devices. It will allow people in close proximity to capture and share their photos, videos and text simultaneously to multiple phones in a jiffy. As, photos and video-sharing are considered, the most popular activities on Facebook , Color's founders portend that the always-on mobile nature of Color will give birth to a different kind of 'post-PC' social network. Nguyen said social networks and apps have created a considerable gulf between users and the traditional PC-based Web, many users were hooked on to before. "This swivel to post-PC world will be of huge significance” Nguyen surmised. Nguyen, who sold online music start-up Lala to Apple for an exorbitant $80 million, worked with the iPhone maker for just under a year. Color is a free service which doesn’t involve the usage of any user names or passwords but Nguyen and his team are counting on advertising and location-based marketing services, to generate revenue. People have woken up to the innumerable possibilities of bringing out the best of social network with devices like the iPhone. With color, users can pull off several new things that are practically impossible to accomplish on a PC The company is willing to pour in monitory resources to get the company’s graph high on development and will go beyond any end to get its infrastructure sound and sturdy. Color recently took DJ Patil on board, the chief scientist of business social network LinkedIn. Patil gave his nod to Color for joining the company as its new chief data officer. He will play his role in helping color, analyze the vast amount of data it anticipates as users of the network move from location to location. Given, Nguyen track record of not owing a company for a longer span of time. There is a possibility that he will put his 8th start-up (color) for sale as well. The previous companies which once belonged to Nguyen, but later changed hands with other Phone.com were Seven and Onebox.

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