It’s certainly a busy news night…
A US startup company has launched a Visual Likeness search engine, called (funnily enough) Like.
The basic premise is that it’s hard to describe what kind of (”aesthetic” - aka Fashion) product you’re looking for. So, if you particularly like the colour, texture, pattern, design, etc about a certain thing - you can search for similar items.
An example given is that if you’re looking for “red strappy shoes”, you can key that in and get a starting point - then if there’s one that looks like what you’re looking for, you can search for more products which look like it.
At the moment, you can either search based on images of what selected Celebrities are wearing, or you can key in some keywords to get you on the right path, then use the image search after that. They’re planning to launch a photo upload service, and a toolbar/extension for browsers so you can search for similar items in photos you see online.
Of course, this isn’t particularly useful for tech product searches - you don’t often go “I like the look of that video card, but I really want it in UV Reactive Pink” - and it’s not targeted there. If you’re looking for a given bit of tech kit, well, text really describes it so much better at the moment. (Notable exception would be case searching).
The killer app will be when you can take a photo of something in a store, or on the street with your phone, and tell Like to find that product.
The disappointing (but not totally unexpected) thing is that it’s US only at the moment, although some retailers might be shipping international. They apparently also plan to extend it to eBay, which would leverage the international sellers significantly.
Robert Scoble has a good starting point for more info on this, and he has an interview with the founder, and a product demo.
(Yes, this is really aimed at Women)
