Google launced today a shopping site today called Boutiques.com which seems to be the first project from Google’s acquisition of Like.com
Here is how Google describes the service on their blog:
“The way we shop for fashion is different from how we buy cameras—especially online. With fashion, reviews and specs are less important; fashion shopping is about discovering something that fits your taste and feels right. The web works well for buying cameras and other hard goods but for soft goods, such as clothing and accessories, it’s not the same as shopping in a store.”
“”Today, we’re excited to share with you our first step towards realizing this goal. It’s called Boutiques.com: a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods, by creating your own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers—celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. Boutiques uses computer vision and machine learning technology to visually analyze your taste and match it to items you would like.”
“In fashion, there are lots of choices. If there are, say, 500,000 items in a store, that means there are literally billions of different combinations of outfits you can make with those items. How do you sort through all of this? This site had to be a collaboration.”
“In addition to all this, Boutiques offers a variety of features to search and discover merchandise including:
Advanced search filters – Filter by genre, silhouette, pattern, color families and sizes.
Inspiration photos – Try a search for [yellow pumps] and you’ll see matching outfit ideas to the right of the search results. We feature images from streetstyle sites, and collage and styling sites to provide you with the online equivalent of styled mannequins to give you inspiration.
Complete the Look – Ever wonder what to pair with that dress? Our fashion designers wrote hundreds of style rules—like “heavily patterned handbags don’t tend to go with heavily patterned dresses”—that we used to develop a tool to suggest items that match.
Visual search – Sometimes you love an item but not in a particular color. We analyze the photograph of an item for its color, shape and pattern and try to help you find visually similar items.
Boutiques on your tablet – Download our iPad application, lean back and move through inventory as if you were flipping through clothes on a rack at the store.
You can start shopping now at Boutiques.com.
At this time, Boutiques is only available in the U.S. and only for women’s fashion, but we plan to expand in the future. Tell us what you think on our feedback form. And if you’re a designer, stylist, celebrity or retailer and want to participate on Boutiques.com, drop us a line.””
A massive collection of inventory culled from other vendors which redirects you to a 3rd party when clicked – just like Epik, except unbannable. Are these links generating revenue right now? Will they in the future?
What’s the difference in these services really besides Google owning the serps, the site, and the engine that provides the results? I’ve always said it’s been a dirty business from day one, the only question is when does someone really challenge this game?
and now Google wants to track also our buying habits 🙁
DON’T BE EVIL
Ladies only collection. Site is useful if you’re buying clothing gift for your G/F.
“DON’T BE EVIL”
already changed years ago in “BE EVIL”
Apple in Space? http://x.co/KMOI
Good news for Digimedia, they own boutique.com so they’ll probably get a ton of extra visitors courtesy of Mr G.
“they’ll probably get a ton of extra visitors courtesy of Mr G.”
…or a ton of extra money from Google to buy it 🙂
So, Google wants to be the search engine and the results also.
I read this as : Basically, they don’t want any third parties making money. They want to control the business vertically in all aspects.
This is a BIG conflict of interest. Google can’t be the search engine, sell the ads, and also compete with stores of their customers.
I can’t wait for the eventual backlash coming. I think I despise Google now worse than any company I have ever known.
…just part of the Eco.System…
http://www.isoc.org/ion/
…
Google for The Big Four and Knob Hill San Francisco
…History repeats
“GOOGLE GAMES THE INTERNET”
They just gave you the proof you have been waiting for,
now you know why your numbers are DOWN!
AND
Googles are going way UP!
How many secret companies/websites do they OWN?
Is 2011 finally the year for antitrust to look hard at google practices and the monopoly they have created…mortgages, travel, ecommerce…the only safe market may be porn
I like what Google have done with Boutiques. It’s similar to my startup, Lifemall.com – the only difference being they’ve gone down the click-through route as opposed to offering an actual platform for buying or selling fashion.
“Is 2011 finally the year for antitrust to look hard at google practices and the monopoly they have created…mortgages, travel, ecommerce…the only safe market may be porn”
If Google did porn do you think they’d want to call it .. oogle.com 🙂 whoops, too late, that’s already a porn site!