[heyitsnick]

It's not just hindsight; a lot of people, commentators here and elsewhere, were bemused by the entire Color story. A ridiculous amount of money for a product that didn't exist, had no market, likely had niche interest at best, and had no clear business strategy.

It did have disaster written all of it, and a lot of people called them on it at the time.

As just one example, a quick google first turned up, but i read mountains of commentary like this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2655652

edit:the parent thread is better to read. this was after shit started hitting the fan, but i can't turn up earlier convos atm http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2655592

[MatthewPhillips]

I remember reading those threads and you're right. The positive spin was built around

1) That it was an interesting idea.

or

2) That it was a talented team which justified the funding.

or

3) That being a "fat" start-up they had plenty of chances to get it right.

I don't remember many (any?) people saying it was a good idea that would succeed on its own merits.

[cube13]

Re: 1

It was an "interesting idea" in that most people really didn't know what the heck they were doing, or what problem they were trying to solve.

All anyone really knew was that they got a boatload of money, and spent a lot of money to get color.com.

[alexqgb]

Let's not forget: the product itself was hideously creepy. It was intended to be a Trojan horse designed to harvest semi-private data from previously inaccessible spaces / transactions / situations, etc, but the design made those intentions a bit to clear - at least to a critical mass of people who were actually paying close attention (not surprising giving the $ involved).