Dive Brief: 

• Pinterest has announced the acquisition of VisualGraph—an image recognition and visual search platform. 
• VisualGraph's technology will help the image-heavy social network improve search functions which currently rely heavily on user created text descriptions. 
• Improved search will help both of Pinterest's current ad products "promoted pins" and "related pins" by making it easier to target ads by what users are searching. 

Dive Insight: 

For a social network like Pinterest that is so heavily image focused, image recognition software is critical to their monetization. The better ads can be targeted, the more brands will be interested in advertising on the platform. Image recognition is a step in the right direction.