A few days ago I mentioned Like.com here. Today’s NYT has an article on Like. On the one hand it is surprising that people (reporters) have such a short memory that they call it first visual search, but on the current topic there are some interesting observations:
The site’s technology is limited at the moment to searching for items within four categories — watches, shoes, handbags and jewelry — which happen to be among the fastest-growing retail segments online.
How good a search engine is Like.com? “It works good enough,� said Munjal Shah, Like.com’s chief executive. “We’ve found that this is an application where the failings of the technology can turn out to be an asset. People will look at an error and say, ‘I didn’t know there was another item that was close, but with a different design.’ �
I hope that visual search becomes successful in this area and then is applied to more general area. But be careful in raising your hopes — see my earlier post on this.
Maybe my friends in Multimedia Information Retrieval will be motivated by such successes.
Wow. This is a serious innovation for the search industry. I cant tell you how many times I’ve wished I could search for similar things in an image. I know Like.com isn’t quite there yet, but it’s close.