Mountain View, California — Last week, the silicon valley was abuzz with search engine giant Google in apparent discussion to bundle up its arsenal with a visual shopping site and, finally on Monday the company announced that it has acquired visual search company Like.com, which specializes in visual search technology that lets people hunt online for bargains using pictures of clothing, handbags, shoes or other items they might desire.
Adding Like.com’s visual search technology, Google would not only bolster up its search and e-commerce capabilities, but also expands its image recognition resources and its social networking opportunities.
“We are thrilled and delighted to welcome Like.com to Google, where they will work closely with our commerce team,” Google spokesman Andrew Pederson said in an email response to an AFP inquiry.
“We are utterly eager about the technology they have developed and the domain expertise they will bring to Google as we continue to work on building great e-commerce experiences for our users, advertisers and partners.”
Like.com websites will continue to operate separately from Google operations, according to Pederson.
The acquisition came to fruition years after the first scuttlebutt emerged that Google was interested in buying Like.com, which initially began life as Riya.com when the company was established in 2004, a company then focused on facial recognition, leverages computer vision and machine learning technology to allow users to search for goods by visual similarity.
Like.com CEO and co-founder Munjal Shah announced the deal on his company’s homepage on Friday. “We see joining Google as a way to broaden our vision and supercharge our passion,” his note reads.
“We were the first to bring visual search to shopping, the first to build an automated cross-matching system for clothing, and more,” he wrote. “We did not stop there and do not have plans to stop now.”
Employing computer vision and machine learning engineering, Like.com offers a visual search engine focused on shoes, clothes, jewelry and decor, according to the company.
“We have invented application that lets us comprehend visually what terms like ‘red high-heeled pumps’ and ‘floral patterned sleeveless dress’ mean and formulated algorithms to understand whether those pumps complement or clash with that dress,” reads a company description.
However, Google’s primary interest in the company is likely to accommodate its technology to add value to its core search products, Google also stands to gain through the enhancement of related image recognition services like Google Goggles.
With Google hoarding up on social networking capabilities — it acquired social currency site Jambool and social entertainment site Slide.com earlier in August — in preparation for a more aggressive challenge to Facebook, Like.com may also figure into the search company’s efforts to make search more social and more deeply integrated with e-commerce.
Certainly visual search, which can be triggered with an image and a single click, is even simpler than entering a text-based search query. On mobile devices in particular, simplicity is critical for usability.
According to TechCrunch, financial details of the deal were not disclosed, but sources say that the acquisition cost — undisclosed by either company — hovered around the $100 million mark.