Latest Celebrity Look

The paparazzi tracked down Angelina Jolie & one of her kids in Venice last week, snapping photos of them eating ice cream. Her fans analyzed the photos, looking for the presence of Brad Pitt, at her new blond highlights & for clues to what they was wearing.

On some blogs, those fans could also click on the clothes or accessories in a photo & buy a Italian Connection scarf, J. Crew wool coat or Luella oversize sunglasses similar to those Ms. Jolie wore.

Readers click on or scroll over a celebrity photo on sites like JustJared, INFDaily or CelebStyle to see what kind of clothes Jessica Biel or Nicole Richie are wearing & where to buy them.

Fashion lovers have always scoured magazines about gossip & fashion to steal trendy ideas from the rich & famous. (& fashion magazines have long maintained that readers view ads as news.) The Web has made it less hard for readers to shop for celebrities’ looks, & it's the added advantage of producing marketing & a tiny e commerce revenue in the method.

“On sites that let you shop the look, it’s easy — it’s four click & it’s done,” said Kathryn Finney, founder of Basically Nice Media, which has one shopping blogs. “It obviously gives them an advantage.”

Print magazines often list stores where readers can buy the clothes shown in the magazine, but they appear in tiny print in the back. Identifying items celebrities wear has been a popular feature on fashion blogs & the Websites of magazines like Blessed & InStyle, but they do it with only a handful of photos. & few use it as a way to bolster e commerce & marketing revenue.

Companies like GumGum & Pixazza tag the paparazzi photos with links for buying the clothes. They hire people to look at photos & match the clothes they are wearing with the same or similar, more affordable items from retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom & Zappos. (Picture recognition technology is not yet sophisticated to automate the method, they say.) The companies receive a tiny fee from retailers when a shopper clicks on or buys an editorial of clothing.

“Publishers & readers look at it as this informational resource,” said Ophir Tanz, chief executive of GumGum, which tagged the photo of Ms. Jolie with four of its “Shop this look” badges. “We look at it as an ad unit.”

“Twenty percent of Web real estate is picture space, & it’s not monetized well at all,” they said.

Celebrity sites are an obvious place to start with this business, but photos all over the Web could be turned in to ads or e commerce portals, said Bob Lisbonne, chief executive of Pixazza. Pixazza designs to add sites that cover travel, sports & interior design.

Sugar Inc., which publishes celebrity gossip & fashion blogs, was being flooded with reader e-mail messages asking what celebrities were wearing in pics, so it started a site that gives this information called CelebStyle. When readers click or buy, Sugar gets a tiny payment from the retailer. CelebStyle designs to do the same with photos of room interiors, said Lisa Sugar, editor in chief of Sugar.

The idea is attracting investors looking for a new way to promote to readers online. Pixazza has raised $5.8 million from investors, including Google Ventures, & GumGum has raised $3.9 million from First Round Capital & others.