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I have been thinking about Color since I downloaded it, took a photo of myself and then wondered what was next. For something to garner so much press and $41 million in venture capital funding, I must be missing something magical about this app. Apparently not as I’m not the only one puzzled.

John Gruber roasted the app calling it a ‘turd’ and wondering if the investors had flushed $41 million down the toilet. Mike Rundle took them to task for burning the first run experience with nearly every user who downloaded the app. Both have valid points, but I think Color’s main problem is far more simple than that.

It is just not fun to use.

Compare that with Instagram, which is ridiculously simple in concept and incredibly fun. You launch the app, snap a photo, apply a filter effect to give it that hipster flare and then share it with your Instagram friends or on your social network of choice.

Even if you have no followers in Instagram’s app itself you have the option of publishing a photo to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or a variety of other services. You can also go through the network of users to look and comment on popular photos. You can even start following photographers you are interested in.

Color has none of that. Instead it has thousands of one-off photos spread out around the world and users puzzled as to what the point is.

Photography Is Antisocial

Though Instagram makes the process of sharing your pictures on a variety of social networks easy, the practice of taking photographs is usually a mildly antisocial activity. When I snap a photo to share, my intention is to share it with my circle of friends and followers.¹ Color’s concept of that is to instead of sharing with friends your photos are automatically shared with any other Color users who are within 150 feet of where they were taken.

If I take a photo of my friends at a dinner party I don’t see the relevance of that to anonymous people within a certain range of my location. Even when I’m at a more public event such as a conference, sporting event or just walking around downtown I’m much more inclined to share my photos with my circle of friends rather than a geocoordinated circle of Color users.

If anyone should have dominated the mobile photos space it is Flickr. Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing sites online and especially popular amongst the tech savvy. Even with a three year head start, Flickr blew it and let Instagram sweep in and capture the mobile photo sharing crowd because they offered a better snap and share experience. I launch Instagram half a dozen times a day. I can’t remember the last time I launched Flickr’s app. I can’t help but feel the same way about Color. I have no incentive or desire to use it.

Color’s impressive technology for automatically grouping photos based on proximity may gain its founders and developers points at Silicon Valley cocktail mixers, but it won’t gain any engaged users. The best mobile apps are those that ride that fine line of impressive technology, utility and fun. Instagram may not have millions of dollars in funding, but it has a passionate user base who use the app because it is an enjoyable experience.

Cuil was an alternative search engine touted as being far superior to Google’s technology. It got written up by every author on the Internet at launch. Today it’s out of business. Joost was another media darling that got tons of press, and had few users to show for it. It’s no longer with us though services like Hulu are thriving. In both of those cases, the companies were founded by top talent with proven track records and great technology. Color could most certainly be the next tech media darling to crash and burn.

The good new is that Color isn’t even a week old, has tons of funding and the opportunity to improve the fun factor of their app. Whether they will is certainly up in the air based on what their founder has said:

The first change is a pretty significant one; if you launch the app in the middle of nowhere, you’re essentially going to be locked out. This is designed to prevent you from opening the app and simply having nothing to do or see.

The second update should prevent that scenario from occurring too often. Nguyen says the app will dynamically calculate the distance required for somebody to be considered “nearby”. Currently, the app searches for anybody within 150 feet of your location. That number will not be a constant any longer: “We’re going to start adjusting that range based on the density of cities,” he says.

Rather than fixing the problem, they’ll just prevent you from using the app even when you have a desire to do so? Now that’s fun.