Google Buys Image Search: Invention Out
December 23, 2016
I read “Google Buys Shopping Search Startup to Make Images More Lucrative.” The Alphabet Google thing has been whacking away at image search for more than a decade. I have wondered why the GOOG’s whiz kids cannot advance beyond fiddling with the interface. Useful ways to slice and dice images are lacking at Google, but other vendors have decided to build homes on the same technical plateau. Good enough is the watchword for most information search and retrieval systems today.
The news that the Google is buying yet another outfit comes as no surprise. Undecidable Labs, founded by a denizen of Apple, wants to make it easy to see something and buy it.
Innovation became very hard for the Alphabet Google thing once it had cherry picked the low hanging fruit from research labs, failed Web search systems, and assorted disaffected employees from search, hardware, and content processing companies.
Now innovation comes from buying outfits that are nimble, think outside the Google box, and have something that is sort of real. According to the write up:
The acquisition suggests that Google, the largest unit of Alphabet Inc., is making further moves to tie its massive library of online image links with a revenue stream.
eBay is paddling into the same lagoon. The online flea market wants to make it easy for me to spot a product I absolutely must have, right now. Click it and be transported to an eBay page so I can buy that item. Google seems to be thinking along a similar line, just without the “old” Froogle.com system up and running. Google’s angle will make an attempt to hook a search into a product sale. Think of Google as an intermediary or broker, not a digital store with warehouses. Yikes, overhead. No way at the GOOG. Not logical, right?
Earlier efforts around online commerce have delivered mixed results at Google. The company’s mobile payments have yet to see significant pickup. Its comparison shopping service, which facilitates online purchases within search results, has growing traction with advertisers, according to external estimates.
Perhaps one asset for the GOOG is that the founder is Cathy Edwards. I wonder if she wears blue jeans and a black turtle neck. What are the odds she uses an Apple iPhone?
Stephen E Arnold, December 23, 2016
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