I’ve decided to start linking to new stuff in search that gets sent to me again, but be forewarned – I won’t be able to give it a full grokking. That said, a lot of new stuff has landed in my inbox, and it always bums me out to have to say “sorry guys I don’t have time.” So from now on, if something catches my eye, I’m going to link to it and give a (very) brief overview. If anyone out there wants to send me stuff, go right ahead, and know that whatever you mail to me I may borrow from to describe whatever it is you’ve built.
First up is Modista. It comes from Berkeley (GO BEARS) so perhaps that’s what tipped it for me. From the email:
We are two computer science Ph.D. students at UC Berkeley, and we’d like to tell you about our project.
Modista applies visual search to online shopping, but it’s very different from Like.com. We use the technology to enable product discovery, so users can browse huge inventories quickly and effectively. It fundamentally changes the user experience: rather than navigating text-based menus and scrolling through lists of results, you can simply rely on your visual intuition.
As we all know, our ability to sort massive amounts of information using our visual cortex far outstrips our ability to sort using textual analysis. I really like this tool, but the real test is whether my wife will!