Google Buys Like.com – Visual Searches For Images & Shopping
Written by Rob Nichols on August 21, 2010 · Filed under Internet, Tech
There have been a fair few notable acquisitions made by major tech firms in recent months, each of which have caused a fair amount of speculation as to the long term changes and benefits. Apple buying out LaLa – will that mean we’ll see a future iTunes online music streaming service, for example; and on a greater scale, HP buying Palm. However, Google’s latest gain paints, perhaps, a slightly clearer picture
Their latest purchase is of Like.com for a reported $100m and the co-founder and CEO of the company behind the first visual search engine, Munjal Shah has immediately had his say on the Like.com homepage, “We were the first to bring visual search to shopping, the first to build an automated cross-matching system for clothing, and more. We see joining Google as a way to supersize our vision and supercharge our passion.”
So, Like.com is notorious for its visual search engine, particularly in the shopping department where you can crosscheck patterns of clothes you find on the web, and are given perhaps matching patterns from other sites, perhaps with other colours, for instance.
It’s an interesting service and there is no doubt that being taken over by Google can only be beneficial not only to the company, but also to the general public who seriously crave a service like this.
The only questions is, will the technology be implemented directly as it is into a new section of Google? Or will they dissect the service and put it into practice in their image search, their Google Goggles Android app, their shopping comparison section or a mixture of Google image-based services?
Whilst this is perhaps seen as a minor acquisition when compared with the likes of HP buying Palm and the excitement that kindled, it is something I would like to see used in full effect to further improve the future of our Google searches.
Via – Coated
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