Pinterest has launched a Google Image Search-style feature that lets members take a photo of any object, then search for similar items in the app.
Called Lens, the feature is currently in beta on iOS and Android in the US-only. Like any machine learning-based tool, it will improve the more it’s used and it is likely to be rolled out worldwide once it’s clocked up enough mileage. Pinterest says its tech can already recognise more than one billion objects, and it has 100 billion pins on the site for Lens to learn from.
Lens is also designed to put objects in context. Photos of homeware will pull up images of entire rooms to offer design ideas, snaps of clothing will suggest an entire outfit, and photos of food will bring up recipe ideas. So it’s not just about adding more shopping functions to the app.
Shop the Look, however, another new tool rolling out in the US first and announced by Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann and co-founder Evan Sharp today in San Francisco is designed to do just that. You can tap the blue circle on a product pin to get recommendations for similar items for sale either on Pinterest or via a brand. Pinterest has said that in early testing, users saved Shop the Look pins five times more than normal ones.
Any pinned item that is for sale will also pull up complementary suggestions in a similar way to Lens, showing how that item was used, or styled by another person. It’s an image-based version of Amazon’s ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ or ‘Frequently Bought Together’ options. Pinterest says it’s powered by a combination of the company’s computer vision tech and human curation, presumably to limit the chances of completely inappropriate items showing up and putting customers off the new tool. Since it’s US-only for now, the brands it is working with are US-only including Macy’s and Target.
The final new feature, Instant Ideas, has been released globally and is designed to personalise a user’s feed and recommendations in real time, adapting as they click on the circle at the bottom right corner of any pin.
Pinterest began pushing customers towards purchasing items in February 2015 when it first rolled out a buy button. By the end of 2016, CEO Silbermann reported that company revenue was expected to be triple 2015’s, reaching $300 million. Pinterest went on to buy Instapaper in August 2016, and we are now seeing the fruits of that acquisition. The ‘read later’ app helps users save articles online, and Pinterest’s lead product manager said at the time: "The Instapaper team are experts in saving, curating and analysing articles, and [...] will work with us to continue building indexing and recommendations technologies."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
