SnapTell, a startup that primarily focuses on image-recognition based mobile marketing, has been acquired by A9.com, Amazon’s search engine technology arm. SnapTell did not disclose the terms of the acquisition.
SnapTell’s visual product search technology lets users take a photo of the cover of any CD, DVD, book, or video game, and the technology will automatically identify the product and find ratings and pricing information online from Google, Amazon, eBay and more. The company has a database of about 5 million+ products. SnapTell launched popular apps for both the iPhone and Android.
SnapTell’s free iPhone app, in particular, was a pretty nifty tool, letting users not only get instant reviews of a product, but also providing local and online price comparisons through TheFind, which allows you to get a quick look at what the item you’ve photographed is going for at local retail stores as well as on online sites like Amazon.
SnapTell has been in the top twenty on the free apps list (which is frankly lower than it probably should be). When we wrote about SnapTell last winter, the company told us that around 35% of its installs see repeated use, and that it has a 15% click-through rate to online stores. Perhaps Amazon will be adding SnapTell’s technology to Amazon Mobile?
Good job SnapTell!
Wow – great for them!
- John
hpman1952@gmail.com
so i will guess the price was more then 4 million to acquired them.
A9 is still alive and kicking? I am surprised.
Shame the technology still sucks though. It’s good for cd’s/dvd’s etc but their ‘vision’ about ‘everything’ being a tag is BS.
Nice way for Amazon to promote online DVD sales by driveby scan though.
Cheers,
Dean
I met the guy that wrote AMZN’s mobile app last weekend. SnapTell will fit right into their “Remembers” functionality… that’s exactly where it’s going.
Congrats SnapTell!
Congrats Snaptell… Ram, Keshav, Gautum & Co!
@davidandrz exactly what I was thinking for the “Remembers” product. Seems like SnapTell helps them scale that business quicker by covering books, CDs, and DVDs.
Great SnapTell..!!
That’s an unique combination.
SnapTell’s “technology” is terrible, terrible. Did Amazon bother too read all of the negative reviews on iTunes about it?
Mertz,
You are absolutely right. I have heard very bad things about it crashing, taking forever to return results, and just not doing anything worthy of being acquired by the big dog Amazon. The fact that the amount wasn’t disclosed probably means Amazon got them for next to nothing, which is exactly what their “technology” is worth.
So much for due diligence… Crapola, with a capital C.
That is an amazing new technology! I’m sure Amazon will find tons of new uses for it.
Don’t know whether Amazon should have waited a bit. kooaba seems to get a lot of speed. They have a great team and are getting faster and faster with more and more products.
Is the image recognition as well available as a desktop application?