Tag Archives: Riya
Like.com Gets Bought Out By Google
In 2005, Google almost acquired Riya.com, a consumer-oriented image recognition company. Riya had the ability to recognize clothes, watches, earrings, etc. from an image and show you similar items through online retail channels. Google decided to walk away from Riya. Riya re-emerged as a company called Like.com shortly after.
(more…)
Categories Burak Gokturk, Google, Like.com, Munjal Shah, Riya
1 Comment
Riya Is Shutting Down August 21st
Riya.com is a facial recognition service that was able to find similar images around the web. Riya founder Munjal Shah wrote an e-mail to their users this morning saying that they are shutting down the service on August 21st.
The service launched about four years ago and almost sold themselves to Google but the deal fell through. After the deal did not clear, Shah and his team decided to focus on a new service called Like.com. Like.com can detect accessories that people are wearing and find similar accessories (if not the same) for sale across the web.
Below is the full e-mail that was sent out.
[via TechCrunch]
Categories Like.com, Munjal Shah, Riya
Leave a comment
Google, August, and CMEA Invest $5.75 Million in Pixazza
Pixazza.com is service that connects advertising to images. The company released a press statement about their $5.75 million in funding earlier this week. Investors include Google Inc., August Capital, and CMEA Capital.
Let’s say that you find a picture of a celebrity, Pixazza places a price tag icon on the apparel that they are wearing. Putting your mouse over the price tag reveals an ad that tells you where you can find that product online.
Like.com has a very similar feature where you upload a picture and it e-mails you the place that you can find similar products. Like.com used to be called Riya and it was rumored that Google wanted to acquire that company a couple of years ago.
“Pixazza hopes to do for images what Google’s AdSense did for web pages,” stated Bob Lisbonne, CEO of Pixazza. “We are excited about the potential our technology holds for delivering an engaging user experience that creates incremental revenue for web publishers.”
Pixazza’s angel investors consist of Ron Conway, former eBay COO Maynard Webb, and Facebook CFO Gideon Yu. The company was started by James Everingham. He brought together a team of people that worked on Netscape in the 1990′s to put together Pixazza. The company is based in Mountain View, Calif.
Categories August Capital, Bob Lisbonne, CMEA Capital, Google, Like.com, Pixazza, Riya
1 Comment
Like.com To Raise Huge Round Of Funding & Bring In Solid Revenues
Like.com is a visual search engine with a focus on shopping and consumption. According to VentureBeat founder, Matt Marshall, Like.com will be preparing to raise double digit funding within the next two weeks. The round of funding, provided by Menlo Ventures, will complement Like’s revenue success.
Like.com allows users to search for consumer products by specific details, colors, and find goods worn by celebrities. Like is working on a technology that allows users to upload photos and find similar goods. When consumers click through the goods on the search engine and buys it from retailers, Like.com shares the revenue. Like.com’s revenue is rumored to be close to $20 million.
To date, Like.com’s total funding is roughly $19.5 million, provided by Bay Partners, BlueRun Ventures and Leapfrog Ventures. Like.com is a spin-off from Riya.com. Riya.com was founded by Munjal Shah in 2004. Riya was rumored to be courted for an acquisition by Google 3 years ago for roughly $40 mill [GigaOM].
Categories Bay Partners, BlueRun Ventures, Leapfrog Ventures, Like.com, Menlo Ventures, Riya
1 Comment
Microsoft’s Interactive Video Advertising: Video Hyperlinks
Under MSN Movies, there is currently an extraordinary advertisement for kohls. As the advertisement is playing a small green icon will appear which indicates that there is a built-in video hyperlink (VHL) in that portion. So if you see a dress that a woman is wearing, simply click on the dress and it will direct you to that item on Kohls.com.
VHL advertising was developed by the Microsoft adCenter Labs and the technology requires users to have Adobe Flash or ActiveX installed. “Video hyperlink ads are a milestone for Microsoft adCenter Labs. As the first stand-alone product from Microsoft adCenter Labs, video hyperlink ads symbolize Microsoft’s promise to innovate and advance the entire industry to new levels,” stated a Microsoft spokesperson.
You will notice in the below screen shot that the dress in the advertisement vide on the left matches the shopping cart option on the right. After you click on all of the items in the commercial that you like, you can check them out by clicking “Buy Now At Kohls.com.”
This concept seems to be a mash-up of YouTube videos and Riya’s Like.com.
Categories Like.com, Microsoft Corporation, Riya
2 Comments