Techcrunch says Google will acquire Like.com for $100M+.
I don’t really understand why Google would need Like from the retail/ecommerce perspective. Google already has barcode scanning technology and voice search for mobile. Google Ventures recently invested in Pixazza, which crowdsources image tagging. The flavor of the year seems to be 2D barcodes from the likes of ScanLife. The Riya/Like.com technology hedges Google’s bets, but if this rumor turns out to be true, I think this is more about the non-retail/ecommerce potential. Google recently revamped its image search UI and seems to be spending more time with image search.
There’s still a really cool vision where I’ll walk down the street, see a shirt that I like, snap a photo, and have Google Image Search/Google Places/Google Shopping bring up the best match from local or online retailers, but I don’t think that’s what this rumored acquisition is about…at least not today.
Posted by Brian Smith 
