CamFind, a photo-centric search app, envisions a future of photos, not text, as the way the people search for information online. Think of it as the Shazam for sights, not sounds.
“With CamFind it’s a lot about product discovery,” Ian Parnes, senior director of business development, told iDigitalTimes. “’I like your shoes let me take a picture of them and see where I can buy them’ kind of thing. Or, it’s 'I see an insect in my home and I want to see if it’s poisonous.'”
To use CamFind, simply take a picture to learn more about “any” object. Parnes said within 8-10 seconds users will see a response. While not instant, he said CamFind guarantees a 100 percent response rate.
“We decided that, yeah, people want answers right away, but if we can get that response in under that 10-second range then we are still providing a good user experience,” Parnes said.
You can save images onto the app for future reference. There is also an interesting live stream feature that allows you to see what other products, buildings, animals, plants, etc that people are searching for around you.
We took a photo of recorder that we used to conduct our interview with Parnes and within 6 seconds there was a listing for our black and gray Sony audio recorder.
The listing included more than a dozen sites to buy the product along with related images of our device.
To day more than 3 million people have downloaded the app and users have uploaded tens of millions of pictures. While already successful, Parnes said there is much in store for CamFind.
CamFind says with its API, called CloudSight, this mobile technology of CamFind can be utilized for more computers. It has the potential, Parnes said, to be integrated directly with smartphones or even specific browsers. Advancement in the technology could also mean a user takes a picture of a rash on his or her arm and doctors using the service can respond.
“When we look at CamFind and how to describe it to people, it’s a Google for the physical world,” Parnes said. “Whenever you need to understand something about anything around you can use CamFind and CamFind it.”
CamFind is free to download in the App Store or Google Play Store.
