Bill Nguyen , the serial entrepreneur who sold his last company to Apple in 2009, is launching a new cellphone-based social network which aims to challenge Facebook's dominance in social communications beyond the personal computer.Color is a free smartphone-based application on iPhones and Android devices which lets people in close proximity capture and share their photos, videos and text simultaneously to multiple phones in real time.
With photos and video-sharing being one of the most popular activities on Facebook , Color's founders hope the always-on mobile nature of Color will create a different kind of 'post-PC ' social network. Nguyen said social networks and apps were moving users away for PC-based web many users were initially familiar with.
"This transition to post-PC world is going to be a huge fundamental shift," said Nguyen. "We're sharing more and more information in realtime ."
Nguyen, who sold online music start-up Lala to Apple for a reported $80 million, worked with the iPhone maker for just under a year.
In September he raised $14 million in seed funding from Bain Capital Ventures and Silicon Valley Bank. One of Silicon Valley's biggest venture funds Sequoia Capital came on board just before launch with $25 million and another $2 million from Silicon Valley Bank.
