I’ve been tracking this Israeli startup called Picitup since its first inception on the Web in May this year. Picitup, dubbed as the world’s first content based image search engine, allows user to search for similar images based on her own uploaded image. This feature performs much the same as GazoPa, the Japan image search engine that I profiled in October last month, also an image search engine, and users can pick any image result shown and filter by color or shape in order for the similar images.

Other than the visual image search, Picitup also rolled out a search feature at the time of their launch which allowed users to compare them with famous celebrities that called celebrity matchup. This search feature allowed users like you to upload your own picture, select the desired gender, and let the search engine to offer suggestions that your face indeed match with the faces of some of the celebrities, as shown in the below example. My own take is that this feature obviously a desirable option for some that seeking additional confidence in their lives.

Since then, Picitup has continually developed new features in order to prove that they may be qualified to do an adequate job in order to coin themselves as the “Google for Images.” Most recently, they made a major enhancement to their core image search engine by rolling out “Visual Shop“. In short, Visual Shop is a Picitup’s search feature that allowed users not only to enter query for the products they want to buy, but also a search service that dedicated to make the buying and comparing experience more interesting. You can search through thousands of images after you typing in the text query. Click on any of the resulting thumbnail images and you’ll open a new window of the source page of that particular image. There are variety of options for you to confirm the product that you want to buy online. You can sort the products by pricing, set the number of image results Picitup will show you per page, filter by the product criteria, categorize product by pricing, online store name, gender and age, brands, and many more, all depend on the particular keyword when you searching for something on Picitup.

Additionally, Picitup provides a grid view or a list view in which you can see the products in a different viewing experience. For example, searching for long sleeve and show the resulting images in a grid view I can see the thumbnails of all the long sleeves without much of the product description associated with the item. In other words, only one line of description of the product can be found on the grid view, as shown in the below picture. If I find one of the long sleeves that I might be interested to buy it, I can also click on the “Similar Products” button beneath the product item to search more about the same type of products. As a result, I can compare the prices and colors of the product items with this filtering tool before I make up my mind to buy the product.

To know more about Picitup, it is co-founded by Alon Atsmon and Dan Atsmon. Both are graduates of Israeli’s elite Talpiot program. And Picitup’s research and development is based in Israel.

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