<<It had already been reported that Google planned to upgrade its shopping services to better compete in the US$140billion e-commerce market by deploying the image-recognition technology of recent acquisition Like.com to enable consumers to do comparison shopping. “We are hosting an exclusive fashion party to celebrate our partners” is all Google would tell WWD on Friday re the launch (see invitation below). Well frockwriter can fill in a few blanks. Our sources say that the new Google fashion initiative is called Boutiques.com and boasts not only online boutiques selling merchandise offered by various designers and retailers, but a large number of curated "boutiques" selling the looks worn by celebrities and other influencers.>> http://frockwriter.blogspot.com/2010/11/boutiquescom-now-you-can-shop-their.html
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_iwE7eCaUh8Q/TOCwmqB5Q1I/AAAAAAAAGbc/a3y65CQMMNg/s640/invite.jpg |
On a side-note, I was always wondering what would happen if Google started to affiliatize all (non-affiliatized) shopping links in their normal search results... both what would happen to Google's revenue (making a commission on every of those sales), and also, what would happen in terms of protests (because URLs wouldn't be all-organic anymore). |
Google could make the affiliate links opt-in, in return for some benefit (such as a higher Gmail limit). Even if only 1% of users opted in, Google would make a lot of money. |
Hi, I do not agree with all of you! |
Here's the WSJ article from Nov. 4: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506404575592420335177184.html – they didn't know about boutiques.com and the upcoming event.
I think boutiques.com will – at best – showcase the new features for google.com or just link to the Google Shopping site (google.com/prdhp, which could be changed to /shopping or /boutiques).
Don't you think that Google might (in the long term) develop a complementary service like polyvore.com? |
<< What’s more, the market for soft goods online is growing tremendously. A year and half ago, our team (which at the time was part of Like.com) started to wonder if we could create a better experience for people to shop online. Our team consists of PhDs in computer science with an emphasis on machine learning and computer vision, along with fashion designers and stylists—we jokingly called ourselves the computer nerds and fashion nerds (and a few of us were both). So, we set out to create a new way to browse, discover and shop for soft goods online.
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. >>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/introducing-boutiques-new-way-to-shop.html |
