Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand keywords. Today at TechCrunch50, Microsoft senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi announced a new visual search feature on Bing which returns results as an interactive gallery of images.
For instance, if you type in “dog breeds,” it organizes them for you in a grid of images that you can scroll through using a slider on the right. When you hover over a particular image, it enters the name of that dog breed in the search box. And you can re-order the image results by size, breed, exercise needs, and Bing popularity.
There are more than 100 visual galleries ranging from movies, books, and cars to products, animals, and sports teams. The sorting categories change each time. So for movies, you can filter by release date, title, or rating. Cars can be sorted visually by make, price or mileage.
When you resort, the images fly around the screen to find their new positions. The visual search acts as a showcase for Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, which makes the animations and visual rendering possible.
“The whole concept,” says Mehdi, “is that the world of search will change. There will be a more graphic way people will search, and it will pivot how people search.”
The judges were impressed with his demo. Ron Conway noted, “I think the huge winner here will be consumers because competition breeds innovation, and this nice little battle between Google and Microsoft is fantastic for consumers.”
Video:
http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/2162065
Other Coverage:
Microsoft launches Bing ‘Visual Search’ CNET.
Microsoft’s next attack on Google: Bing gets visual search VentureBeat.
Bing Tries More Pictures, Less Text Silicon Alley Insider.
Microsoft’s Bing Introduces Visual Search Feature paidContent.
Making Search Prettier: Bing Launches Visual Search ReadWriteWeb.
Microsoft Updates Bing with ‘Visual Search’ FeaturePC World.
Microsoft launches new visual search for Bing Seattle Times.
Microsoft Bing Adds Visual Search Option Bits NYTimes.
Bing: Now With Visual Search Digital Daily.
Meet an Awesome Search Engine for iPhone Apps – Bing Digital Inspiration.
Bing Search Gets Visual Technologizer.
Hands on: Bing gains Silverlight-only Visual Search feature Ars Technica.
Microsoft Bing Adds Picture Searches for Some Queries Bloomberg.
Microsoft Bing gets visual search; full 2.0 update later this fall All About Microsoft.
Microsoft Adds Visual Search to Bing PC Magazine.
Bing’s new visual search tools are both stupid and cool Daily Finance.
Bing 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures Search Engine Land.
Is Bing Optimizing for the Short Snout? The Noisy Channel.
Microsoft announces Bing Visual Search MobileTechWorld.
Bing Goes the Visual Internet AppScout.
Visual Search – Why type when you can see it? Bing Blog.
Microsoft Bing Visual Search Option Helps Us Become Lazier Searchers Google Watch.
Bing encourages visual search Computer World.
Google Leads in Search Engine Quality Test, But Bing ImpresseseWeek.
Bing 2? Microsoft Debuts Visual Search Engine internetnews.com
Comment