Pixsta

PIXSTA is a UK-based image and video search company founded in 2006 by Alexander Straub, Dr. Daniel Heesch and David Williams.

Infobox generic
color = light blue
name = Quick facts|
img1 = New_pixsta_logo.jpg
width1 = 220px
cap1 = Contextual visual search|
hdr1 = PIXSTA
lbl1 = Product:
row1 = PIXSTA AdImages
lbl2 = Functionality:
row2 = Image search engine; online advertising platform
lbl3 = Development status:
row3 = Beta with live, pilot advertising network
lbl4 = Availability:
row4 = Hosted; licensed
lbl5 = Website:
row5 = [http://www.pixsta.com www.pixsta.com]

Background

The company has applied patent-pending scientific research into image search and retrieval in a fundamentally different way to other exponents of web search technology, allowing users to browse and search for relevant items using images rather than keywords. In essence, PIXSTA enables an image to be submitted as a search term, generating results in the form of a set of visually similar images.

Technology

The PIXSTA image search engine is the result of several years of academic research by Dr Daniel Heesch, a graduate of St John’s College Oxford and Imperial College London, UK.

The search engine does not rely on tags that may, or may not have been, added to images; instead, it analyses images down to the pixel level, to identify visual attributes like shape, texture, colour and the kind of objects they contain. PIXSTA’s technology compares images directly at this visual level rather than at the textual level, making tags unnecessary.

Implementation

Like other search companies such as Google and Yahoo, the challenge facing PIXSTA is the monetisation of its technology. Its first attempt at monetization is in the form of an online advertising network for fashion retail. In this network, fashion media brands have deployed PIXSTA in the shopping sections of their website, to help visitors browse products more quickly, easily and accurately than could be achieved using textual means. The database of images comprises the online collections of multiple fashion retailers – effectively, advertisers. The system is presently a ‘closed’ system, in that search term images must be an image from the database; submitting any such image brings up other images from the database as results.

Conceptually similar to Google AdWords, PIXSTA AdImages generates revenue from the advertisers in the form of click-throughs, which take the visitor directly to the appropriate product page on the retailer site. Click-through revenue is shared between PIXSTA and the host site.

Milestones

PIXSTA evidently revealed early deployments in November 2006 [ [http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/archives/2006/11/euro_rivals_for_riya.html , 13 November 2006: "Euro Rivals For Riya -> Pixsta and Polar Rose"] ] , but didn’t make any further formal statements until May 2008 [ [http://blogit.webitpr.com/?ReleaseID=8526 WebitPR, 1 May 2008: "PIXSTA takes on Google with image-based online advertising network"] ] . At this time it announced several live pilot deployments, and claimed more to come.

The company alluded to further online advertising networks in other industries where goods are sold on their visual appearance, including shoes, art, antiques and home furnishings.

The company also claimed that the PIXSTA image search engine is sufficiently accurate and sophisticated to enable its use in facial recognition applications.

Future development

No timescale was given for any product evolution.

References

External links

* [http://www.pixsta.com PIXSTA] main web site