• The New York Times, Monday, November 13, 2006 11:45 AM

A new shopping site has a different take on the search model used by site like Shopping.com and Shopzilla. Like.com lets users search, based on the look of their favorite celebrity. The shopping site matches descriptions of shoes, watches, handbags and jewelry with items for sale on the Web. Bbut the engine uses artificial intelligence to search images rather than text.

There are two ways shoppers can find items. One is to type an item into the search box, like "black heels" or "silver earrings," which would yield pages of images from across the Web. Another is to browse through selected items from the wardrobes of a dozen celebrities, like Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Simpson. You can choose selected items from images of each celebrity, and then Like.com technology will scour the Web in search of the closest match to each item.

A search for Scarlett Johansson's silver dangling earrings from a recent movie premiere brought back items ranging in price from $40 to $8,000. The company then makes a 5% to 15% commission from retailers for purchases made via its Web site.

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