Bing introduces Visual Search

Friday 18 September 2009 | By Heidi Scott, Gosh! Media Copywriter

In its most recent bid to claw market share from search leader Google, Microsoft has introduced a feature called Visual Search – which does what it says on the tin – to its Bing search engine.

Launched back in May, Bing's share of US searches rose to 10.7% in August, with Google still number one at 64.6% and Yahoo in second place with 16%.
The launch of Visual Search comes hard on the heels of the agreement, signed in late July, between Microsoft and Yahoo to collaborate in their fight to topple Google from the top spot, although this deal still has to pass anti-trust scrutiny.

Visual Search provides an alternative to the usual blue hyperlinks in search results, instead offering Internet users a gallery of thumbnail images to help them refine their search. To use the new feature – which is currently only available in the US – users will first need to install Microsoft's new web application, Silverlight – a fact that cynics see as a cunning plan to keep people from switching to Google OS.

Using Visual Search to find a product – let's say, a book – results in a number of thumbnail images flying onto the screen. As the search is refined, those book covers that no longer match the query fly away, narrowing down the results.

The beta, or test, version of Visual Search was unveiled by Microsoft at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco on Monday. "The whole concept is that the world of search is going to change," said Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's Senior Vice-President of Online Services. A study conducted by Microsoft Research shows that consumers can process results with images 20% faster than text-only results.

Visual Search features a number of preset searches for users to try, including searches for handbags, movies and dog breeds.

Handbags

These samples give a clue to the scope of Visual Search, which will initially concentrate on certain popular topics including travel, health, shopping, entertainment and sports. Users who experiment with searches outside of these subjects won't be quite so impressed with the results. The reason is simple: all the searches have to be manually programmed, making Visual Search an incredibly time-consuming project for Bing.

Cars

The popularity of Visual Search – and thereby its effectiveness in boosting Bing – will depend on how quickly Microsoft can expand its scope. Watch this space.

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