Keeping Up With Web Images Via 'visual Search'

A young company called Pixsy has come up with a way to search for online photos and video that gives priority to the newest content.

If users type in Tom Hanks, for example, results showing him with long, slicked-back hair from "The Da Vinci Code" will come up before his "Cast Away" tangle or his "Forrest Gump" crew cut.

This becomes relevant because clicking on a result thumbnail brings up the image along with descriptive information and a button that links to the source of the image. This means users would be connected to a news story or other current information likely to be about Hanks' upcoming movie.

Pixsy does this by basing its database on Really Simple Syndication feeds, which typically contain summaries of content newly added to Web sites with descriptive tags and links to the full versions. Among the hundreds of feeds Pixsy continuously scours are those maintained by Reuters, the New York Times, YouTube, MSNBC, StupidVideos.com and the BBC.

Pixsy founder Chase Norlin described the service as "visual searching" and said it gives people a new, more instinctive way of pursuing their interests.

"If you're interested in hurricanes, for example, you can search for the image that compels you the most," he said. "Then you click on that, and it will take you to the article it was published with."

For those who would rather browse, the service offers such general categories as entertainment, politics and fashion.

Norlin said Pixsy is legal even though it doesn't have relationships with its sources. "It's different than other search engines because these feeds are already being actively pushed out by the provider," he said. "We're not doing any hosting, either. If you like an image and click on it, we send you to whoever owns it."

Revenue is generated by advertising and affiliate arrangements. Pixsy also has a strategic relationship with merchandising services company Chitika Inc. to offer contextually relevant shopping ads to Pixsy users.

Pixy uses AJAX (the increasingly popular Asynchronous JavaScript and XML development technique), which Norlin said gave its users a better experience and quicker responsivity.

Norlin said Pixsy offers three types of partner opportunities: Publishers can arrange to have their material indexed and therefore more accessible, publishers can license the technology for their own uses, and other portals or search engines can license Pixsy to use under their own brand at no cost.