• TechCrunch, Wednesday, July 27, 2011 11:39 AM

Photo tagging service Pixazza officially rebranded as Luminate on Wednesday and debuted a new platform for in-image apps. According to TechCrunch, some liken the Google Ventures-backed start-up to an "AdSense for Images." A fair characterization or not, the company lets publishers identify, tag and match products found within online images on their sites, and then link them back to the inventories of its own network of advertisers.

"The service, which can be integrated in a site by adding a single line of code, allows consumers to browse the photos featured on a site and mouse over it to reveal information and pricing about similar products, and if desired, click to purchase," TechCrunch explains.

Luminate claims to currently reach over 150 million unique users per month, and says it is seeing a rate of 30 billion image views per year. The company reportedly works with roughly 4,000 publishers, including Us Weekly, Hearst Digital Media and Access Hollywood.

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