ReadWriteWeb

I know what you're thinking. "Where can I look for a mate, a book and a blender at the same time? Oh, and it has to be a visual search." PicClick looks to be the answer.

When Ryan Sit, also the founder of TopicFire (ReadWriteWeb coverage) started PicClick, a year and a half ago, it had two tabs - eBay and Amazon. Now it has seven, having added Etsy, Match.com, AllRecipes, Google and Yelp (the last still under construction). And it looks smart on an iPad.

Google's newest acquisition is Plink, makers of a visual search application for mobile devices called PlinkArt. The app "recognizes almost any work of art," claims the app's homepage, "just by taking a photo of it." In addition to the visual identification aspect, Plink users can also discuss the art within the app, send images to friends or order prints of the artwork.

On its own, Plink sounds like an entertaining and educational tool, but one whose real-life implementations would probably be limited to a tour of an art museum or a late-night cram session for an Art History exam. But Google didn't just buy Plink for the art it can identify - that's just an added bonus. It's likely that Google bought the company more for the algorithm that powers the smart application and brains of those who invented it.

Since Microsoft launched Bing, the company has been trying to position it as a 'decision engine' and not just as another search engine. Today, Microsoft is taking another step in this direction with the launch of Visual Search in Bing. For a growing number of searches, instead of giving users a list of 10 blue links, Bing will now give users the option to visualize the search results on a 3D grid with icons or photos. Now, for example, if you search for 'Top iPhone Apps,' Bing will not just present a list of links to other sites but also provide the option to show you those iPhone apps directly in Bing, with the added ability to filter them by price, category, or publisher.

Stockholm-based startup Spezify is a visual search engine that impresses with relevant results displayed in a visual but still functional way.

Founded by Felix af Ekenstam and Per Persson, digital creatives who have over 10 years of experience in the space, Spezify arrived in beta in April and launched officially about six weeks ago. Results are culled from a number of search APIs and include social and multimedia content presented as a mosaic of the "big picture" for any search terms.

Quanp, a new service from office electronics company Ricoh, has just launched a beta of their online storage system which offers an interesting twist to the usual backup services: a visual search tool that displays your data in 3D. The 3D viewer is actually a desktop application designed for Windows PCs, but Mac users aren't entirely out of luck - there is an online version of the service, too.

Cooliris, the browser extension that launches a 3D visual search interface to the web, has just updated their application with what at first seems to be just a minor upgrade. But don't be fooled, this small change to the Cooliris add-on is actually going to have a major impact on the product's usability.

So, what's different? As of today, Cooliris will no longer launch into a full-screen 3D browser when activated. Instead, Cooliris will launch into a separate browser tab. This change was heavily requested by Cooliris users, a multi-tasking bunch of folks who wanted to be able to quickly switch back and forth between Cooliris's 3D web and all the other open tabs and applications running on their computers.

We all use search engines day in and day out to find things that we're seeking. And while traditional searching techniques are great, sometimes you can't quite put what you want into words. But you're sure that you'll know it when you see it. At those times, a picture is worth a thousand word-based searches. If this sounds familiar, PicClick - a new visual search engine for eBay and Amazon listings - may be your answer.

To use PicClick, simply choose either the Amazon or eBay tab, enter a basic search term or drill down using pre-selected topics, and add price information if you like. Then, hit search and - voila - your browser is suddenly filled with a series of thumbnails, giving you a visual representation of the available products matching your criteria.