Pinterest Gets the Visual Graph

Social pinboard Pinterest announced recently that it has acquired VisualGraph, a machine vision, image recognition and visual search technology provider. 

The acquisition could be incredibly fruitful for Pinterest. The company could use VisualGraph's tech to understand more about what people pin, and ultimately suggest other things that or show ads with greater relevancy. For example, if Pinterest knows you're pinning high-heel shoes (even without text or tags on the pins), VisualGraph could help Pinterest recognize the shape and style, perhaps even serve advertising based on those pins.

"On Pinterest, millions of people are curating and sharing billions of Pins everyday," said Visual Graph's Kevin Ying, continuing "And these Pins are more than just images -- they link to contents that can inspire and enrich people's lives. We are excited for the opportunity to combine machine vision with human vision and curation, and to build a visual discovery experience that is both aesthetically appealing and immensely useful for people everywhere."