Since then, nothing much has happened between the two. I wonder why. Was this $100M deal just a strategic move in the sense that Google wanted to keep it out of the hands of the competition?
In any case, a new threat has popped up.
In Japan, Google's main competitor (and market leader) Yahoo Japan has just started working on technology similar to that of Like.com. Currently in "Labs", Fashion Navi is to be integrated with Yahoo Shopping and it allows the user to search all available products through categories, price range and colour.
It is still very buggy and slow, and the links don't always seem to lead directly to the specific product pages. However, I do see the value added for the user; it could save great amounts of time if you're looking for a specific color, and when combined with the filtered search it could lead the user to the desired end product efficiently. Just like Like.com.
Try it for yourself here.
To improve the functionality, the people at Yahoo should work on the following:
- More elaborate categories including brands
- Intuitive filtered search with slide bars
- Ranking of product by reviews, price etc.
- Search options for multi-colored items
I am curious to know what this news will do the development of Like.com and similar functionalities in Google's products. Surely the search leader of the world can come up with something interesting? I mean, why does Google Image Search have filtering by color, while Google Shopping doesn't!?
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