bing “Visual Search” – a new dimension of search engine

Bing is more than a search engine. It is a Entertainer.

“a picture really worth a thousand words”. Search engines are now focused on extracting useful information from web pages and surfacing data in interesting ways.

Textual days are gone, we are now at visual days.Here is an  alternative way of textual search (keyword search)  is visual search by Bing.

Text search can only take you so far. Sometimes, you know exactly what something looks like, but you just can’t remember the name. A new Bing feature called Visual Search will come in very handy in such cases.

It works great when, for example, you’re shopping for gadgets or looking for a famous person whose name you just cannot remember. You can also start by browsing; for example, the Visual Search lets you visualize MLB players, after which you can filter them out by their earnings and various game stats.

If you are so interested check out here and come back ….

Search for [dog breeds] and you'll find a list of breeds, suggestive images, information about the average weight and the country of origin.

"Visual Search allows you to quickly scroll through the galleries or do a one-click refinement using the quick tabs on the left, which are specifically relevant to the type of results you are browsing through," mentions Bing's blog.

Bing's visual galleries are more polished than the results generated by Google Squared, but Bing only shows galleries for a small number of queries like "popular TV shows" or "world leaders" or “Yoga Poses” and the information is obtained from structured data sources.

 

Note ;- Check out the filter options provided.

Visual Search is unlikely to become a user's first stop when looking for information. But when you only know what something looks like, a visual search capability, done properly, can save the day.

It remains to be seen if Microsoft manages to extend the visual search engine and dynamically generate results for any query. For now, you can play with the demo galleries.

Bing Video Search

BING - after launch in Australia

Bing is a new search engine designed to do more than merely help you find information. Bing organizes search results and provides refinement tools that help you overcome information overload, get things done and quickly bring you to the point of using that information to make an informed decision.(Read More …)

Microsoft considers that Bing’s ability to present a wide selection of relevant results will give users better, faster and more accurate searching than Google.

Now an Australian version of Bing has been launched with visitors, MS revealed that Microsoft Australia is holding down bing.com.au while other Microsoft subs have snapped up bing.co.nz , bing.co.uk, bing.ca, bing.sg, bing.hk, bing.de and bing.fr.

 

"As Bing was in development and various features were tested with consumers, we found that people really enjoyed the daily homepage image. It provides something inspirational and interactive every day, which has resonated really positively with our audience," said Alex Parsons, director of MSN Products at ninemsn. 

The site has already won an internet following with some fans collating daily images for others to view.

Australian technology blogger Long Zheng, who has archived all the images that have appeared on Bing since its launch in May, praised Microsoft for providing "an opportunity to explore and learn without searching at all".

"I decided to host an archive of the images to make it easier for people to browse and appreciate the daily backgrounds provided on the Bing website, even if they don't visit the Bing website daily or do not use Bing at all," he said.

His said his archive had received nearly 90,000 hits since its launch a little over a month ago and had roughly 2000 hits a day.In spite of its new-found following, Bing made no significant inroads into the Australian search engine market during June, internet researcher Nielsen Online said.

With 2.4 million Australian visitors, Bing trailed far behind Google's total of 10.1 million, and both Google and Yahoo7 (1.5 million) increased their search engine traffic from the previous month.

However, so far Microsoft’s Bing seems to have garnered way more interest in Australia, India and China than it has in the Unites States (which comes in at number four on this list). Bing is twice as popular in Australia as it is the United States, and more than three times as popular as it is in Canada.

discover bing

Bing Video Search

Bing – a overview

Microsoft's (MSFT) new search engine Bing, and more reviews are in.

Let's go to press:

Los Angeles Times writer David Sarno: "This more elegant and intuitive approach to search will help consumers distill useful information on commerce-friendly topics such as shopping, travel, health and local business, Microsoft said. ... Its redoubled focus on commerce-related search is probably a reflection of the online advertising market, in which sellers pay more to put their ads in front of consumers who are already shopping."

Seattle Times columnist Brier Dudley: "When Bing demonstrates its fancy tricks during specialized shopping searches, it feels more like a collection of Web 2.0 sites than a traditional search engine. Instead of the simple list of results flanked by ads, with a few pictures or videos mixed in, Bing gives clusters of results with buttons, tabs and charts. ... Bing makes you wonder if Microsoft executives regret selling or spinning off some of the Web services it built in the 1990s, such as travel site Expedia and entertainment directory Sidewalk. It basically re-created some of their features to give Bing its bling. Imagine what might have happened if it had rolled them into MSN Search back in 2000."

CNet editor Rafe Needleman: "I planned to write this story with the headline, 'Bing isn't Better,' but the new engine won me over. The new game in search is parsing information and displaying it in the engine itself (see Wolfram Alpha for the extreme example of this). Both Google (GOOG) and Bing, and other search products, have areas where they will collate and format information for you, instead of just linking you to external pages where the data reside. Bing does an extremely good job at this in several popular areas--like product reviews, movie listings, weather, travel, and stock prices. ... Google keeps improving in the area of in-search collation and display as well, but Bing makes Google look complacent, and that's not good for Google. For the moment, Bing's on top in this game."

Forrester Research marketing analyst Shar Van Boskirk: "Search engines have long been used as gateways to Web content.  But as a decision engine, Bing introduces a search engine that actually delivers Web content without sending users away to other destination sites.  A search for "airfare to Denver" shows available fares, pricing trends, a buy or wait recommendation, and a link to purchase.  Since we expect other search engines to follow Bing's lead, this means marketers should expect increased costs for search and display ads."

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