[michaelbuckbee]

There are always 3 things: idea, team and execution.

Color had a genuinely interesting idea: make a social network via implicit information rather than deciding whether or not the a person is a "friend".

I can see this being of particular interest to Google as they built themselves on a similar premise: ranking web searches via implicit data (links, etc.) rather than a hand built index.

So, with an interesting idea and a strong team they secured both acquisition interest and a huge funding round. The idea being that they would release a series of applications and products that would deliver on the promise of implicit social network creation.

Then their PR got ahead of them (no doubt purchased with a chunk of the $41 mil) and expectations got built to a level that could never be delivered on with the first iteration of their first product - an iPhone photo app.

So, now there is a big backlash as people feel "duped" by the gap between the hype and the product and it is crushing the company.

[r00fus]

When they didn't show up to SXSW which would have been perfect to demonstrate their app, they already failed.

Google wasn't paying for execution, so $200M might have been worth the talent (and perhaps the idea).