So, ever wonder what $41 million gets you these days?

Apparently – if the Color app’s recent announcement is any indication – it gets you quite a bit of hype. The concept behind Color is important. But its execution is nothing to write home about.

Color offers what it claims is a breakthrough new social networking application for geo-tagged pictures. With the free app for iPhone, you take photos as a group, and anyone within 150 feet of one another can see the photos that others have taken on their device. Photos are posted without any sort of authentication. The makers of Color recommend that users not use the app alone.

And by alone, what they really meant to say is “don’t use Color unless you are hanging out with your anti-social friends in a public place” or perhaps, “don’t use Color unless you would otherwise tweet what is happening, while it’s happening, with people besides those within 150 feet of where it’s happening.”

Not only is every photo you upload to the service sent free and clear to whatever cloud Color is using to store the photos on, but there are no restrictions on who can see or join groups while you’re at locations. There’s even a well-published workaround to being able to eavesdrop on groups formed at any location, no matter where you are.

What’s more, photos can even be selected from the iPhone’s camera roll, enabling users to break from the spirit of the app, which is taking pictures based on the place you’re currently located.

My initial thoughts on being able to take pictures with a handful of people at once is that Color is more of a toy than a realistic tool for most users’ social media arsenal, but there are some advantages a product like this could have after it has been more refined.

However, Color falls short of being able to claim any sort of victory in the location space, despite the claims by the tech press. In the end, combining a sub-par and confusing application, numerous privacy concerns and a poorly executed though unique idea seems to do nothing but feed the tech bubble trolls of the media.

-Brad (@bcarr)