Continuing with my coverage of the World Telemedia event in Budapest, I discovered a little-known soon-to-launch mobile music and content service that harnesses visual search to sell content and keep the customer. Craze Productions, headed by Sam “Doctor of Dance” Kleinman, a digital media company specializing in Urban & Dance music, has quietly teamed up with DSPV Ltd., and Israeli provider of visual search solutions based on its own IP, for visual search. The service, which Kleinman tells me will debut in the U.K. in the next weeks (most likely before the holiday season gets into full swing), will allow users to shop till they drop using their camera-enabled 3G phones. (Check out this clip to see the service in use.) DSPV has also recently run a visual search service with Orange in Israel, delivering results the operator said exceeded expectations.
Kleinman’s new service will go beyond music content. Users who take a liking to an artist’s Phat Farm cap or a RocaWear jacket, for example, will soon be able to purchase apparel and a variety of other cool stuff using visual search. As Kleinman put it, the technology (and the no-brainer interface that visual search represents) makes buying music and merchandize “inescapable.” What you see is what you will get. And - because Craze sells D2C- Kleinman can monitor purchasing patterns and collect the analytics that will make for a better and more targeted marketing of music services. (Craze has recently