Visual commerce: Pixazza to be the AdSense for Images
Google announced its investment in Pixazza, a service that is aiming to be an AdSense for images, meaning that what currently can only be done on search query text or contextual text, could be happening even within images. The idea has been around for a while, but no one apparently has tried to offer it, or previous go-to-markets have failed. Google’s investment could indicate that it is now deemed as mature enough to go to market with it.
Essentially, how it works is that website owners tag products contained in the images of their websites, and link to providers offering these products. Obviously the generated click-throughs then are paid for by e-commerce vendor.
What is particularly smart about the business model is the involvment of “shopper experts”, meaning anyone out there who is a shopaholic. You can sign up to become such an expert and get paid for finding and tagging products on websites and matching them to Pixazza merchants, such as Amazon, Bluefly and others.
The trick is going to be to balance blatant price tagging with maintaining the site’s original user experience.
This is the process description from the Pixazza website:
