Impulse buy

Photo ad network Pixazza has launched an e-commerce feature that enables viewers to click on items in an image, then view online product listings for them.

The service enables web publishers to add little yellow tags to items in an image. When users hover over the tag, a product listings box appears that enables them to click through to retailers and make purchases. Websites like iamnotobsessed.com have been testing the feature since last fall, according to BusinessWeek, who dubbed the offering "AdSense for images."

Indeed, investors include Google itself, alongside August Capital, CMEA Capital, CFO Gideon Yu of Facebook, CEO Maynard Webb of LiveOps, and angel Ron Conway.

But unlike AdSense, which trawls participating webpages for appropriate context for an ad, Pixazza applies ads to a page by enlisting people to register with the site and identify products in photos across websites. They then match them to the two million products offered by Pixazza's retail partners. (Such partners include Zappos, Bluefly and Amazon.) Users that help identify potential ad locations get a cut of the commission, alongside partner retailers and web publishers.

At present, Pixazza's only product category is apparel, though it plans to branch over to other products and even beyond images.