I have to give it to Munjal of Riya, the new like.com visual search engine is simply brilliant. The combination of image search and shopping engine is engineered very smartly. Soon, you will even be able to upload a picture and find similar pictures online.
I used Riya for a while, but the interface got too clunky for me after they added a number of features and the original simplicity was gone. Like.com’s design has all the goodness we expect from a Web 2.0 site (there are even some rounded corners if you look closely).
According to Riya, they will continue working on the original Riya.com, though slower.
TechCrunch has a review, and Scoble did a podcast and got a prodcut demo as well.
If I have some extra time today, I might just do a little screencast review of this one.
Here is Munjal himself on what Like.com is all about:
URL: Like.com
What: Like is the first visual search engine where you can click on / submit a photo as your search query
Index: Like searches merchants sites for Jewelry, Handbags, Shoes, Watches. 200 merchants 2M SKUsLike.com is the world first visual search engine. We focused visual search on items that are hard to describe linguistically. Think about it, you don’t need visual search to search for an iPod … but you do need visual search for finding a shirt with a pattern similar to your friends. When it comes to design oriented or aesthetic elements, text search tends to fail you. Try to describe the pattern on a plate of china in text. It is really hard.
Like solves this problem. All you have to do is a “Likeness search” on a photo and Like will show you items that look similar.
Some other features of Like include:
• Likeness Search – the ability to search by image instead of text;
• Like Detail – finds items that have a specific feature you like (such as a buckle, straps, bezel, etc);
• Like Color – find color variants of the item you desire;
• Like Celebrity – find clothing, shoes and accessories similar to those worn by celebrities;
• Like Upload – the ability to upload a photo of your favorite item and find similar (coming soon)
ChezImelda.com which was mentioned on some of the TechCrunch comments represents an interesting way of image search in a particular category like Shoes. I tried it and found on http://www.chezimelda.com within a couple of clicks the orange crocs shoe I was looking for. Quite an interesting alternative to like. The company seems to use image search technology proviced by Pixsta.
Pixlover - obviously you are affiliated with either ChezImelda or Pixsta (I would gather the second) - why hide that in your comment?