ChasNote

Here’s what Google is doing with its $100 million acquisition of Like.com: Combining visual search with retail advertising opportunities. From NY Times:

“In a deliberate collision between nerds and fashion mavens, Google has created a new e-commerce site that significantly improves how fashion is presented and sold online…. It is a collection of hundreds of virtual boutiques merchandised — or, in the new parlance, ‘curated’ — by designers, retailers, bloggers, celebrities and regular folks. You can shop in the style of, say, the actress Carey Mulligan or Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen — among the celebrities who signed up for the launch — or you can build your own boutique and amass followers who can comment on your taste.”

It’s interesting to see Google playing in the human-curated arena, eh? The celeb fashion mavens who are running the first few boutiques aren’t the kind of people who would accept financial deals that only pay them a share of retail revenues they help peddle. Perhaps, though, this celebrity-driven approach is one intended to seed the idea. Eventually, I suppose, individual aspiring fashionistas will pick up the slack set up their own boutiques — and they’ll do it for fun plus a simple rev share.

I’m also not sure what to make of Google launching it’s own content site. I’m guessing Boutiques.com is a test lab for something that Google will eventually syndicate to its AdSense publisher network.

(Disclosure: Google Ventures is an investor in Pixazza, but Pixazza has no connection to Boutiques.com or Like.com.)