Bing's Phenomenal New Visual Search

When the folks at Microsoft's (MSFT) Bing first demonstrated Visual Search, I was blown away. That’s quite an accomplishment for this search cynic. Now you get to try it for yourself–as the feature has just gone live.

It’s really hard to describe Visual Search, which is why I told Bing, “You have to do a video demo of this, because it’s going to be really hard to describe.”

They’ve obliged–although the amateur, over-the-shoulder shot wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Still, you’ll get the idea:

The real fun is in the testing. Visual Search is not available for every search, but, as you’ll see from the list below, there are a lot of topics covered.

Entertainment

• 100 heroes and villains

• Billboard’s past albums

• Billboard’s past songs

• Film legends

• Greatest movies

• Movies in theaters

• Popular books

• Popular celebrities

• Popular DVDs

• Popular TV shows

• Pulitzer winning fiction

• Top albums

• Top songs

Famous People

• FBI’s most wanted

• Popular celebrities

• US politicians

• US presidents

• US vice presidents

• World leaders

Reference

• Dog breeds

• Periodic table

• Travel destinations

• US politicians

• US presidents

• US states

• US vice presidents

• World leaders

• Yoga poses

Shopping

• Cell phones

• Digital cameras

• Handbags

• HDTVs

• New cars

• Popular books

• Popular DVDs

• Portable GPS

• Pulitzer winning fiction

• Top albums

• Top iPhone apps

Sports

• MLB players

• MLB teams

• NASCAR drivers

• NBA players

• NBA teams

• NFL players

• NFL teams

• NHL players

• NHL teams

• UFC fighters

Comments

[Josh B Thom...:]

Very good especially considering it is the first version. MSFT is clearly in this match. They are responding back.

Sep 15 02:29 AM

[sleepy:]

Kinda looks more like a portal than a search engine to me. Then there's the bandwidth needed for a responsive experience. Then there's the fact that you need to install Silverlight. Flash is already a blight on the browsing experience. Do we really want another proprietary blight?

Like Wolfram Alpha, it's impressive, but it doesn't remotely replace Google. And Microsoft is astroturfing again by hijacking and bending the word "search", just as they did with "windows", and "word". It's not search, it's a dog and pony show to draw you in to Bing and SIlverlight. Don't let them mess with your mind yet again.

Seems to have this writer fooled that it's search. It's not, even if it is pretty.

Sep 15 08:40 AM

[Pastwai:]

Hmmm. Cooliris already did that?

Sep 15 11:17 AM

[DannyP:]

well if I may ask you, do we really need all these different browsers? when there is IE!! when most of the people in world uses IE. sames goes for Windows!! MS came with SliverLight thinking same as google with OS. I don't see anything wrong with it. There are already way too many choices of browser's, OS's, search engines... why couldn't we have more choices for web animations?????

On Sep 15 08:40 AM sleepy wrote:

> Kinda looks more like a portal than a search engine to me. Then there's
> the bandwidth needed for a responsive experience. Then there's the
> fact that you need to install Silverlight. Flash is already a blight
> on the browsing experience. Do we really want another proprietary
> blight?
>
> Like Wolfram Alpha, it's impressive, but it doesn't remotely replace
> Google. And Microsoft is astroturfing again by hijacking and bending
> the word "search", just as they did with "windows", and "word". It's
> not search, it's a dog and pony show to draw you in to Bing and SIlverlight.
> Don't let them mess with your mind yet again.
>
> Seems to have this writer fooled that it's search. It's not, even
> if it is pretty.

Sep 15 11:47 AM

[Phillip Jain:]

Henry Ford said, choice is good .. as long as you choose black.

Personally, I disable flash & never install silverlight. Browsers are slow enough as it is. Who wants an elephant on a fat pig on a slow OS?

Sep 15 05:16 PM

[GSlusher:]

"The real fun is in the testing. Visual Search is not available for every search, but, as you’ll see from the list below, there are a lot of topics covered."

So, it's NOT really a "search," at all. Instead, it displays pre-packaged images & information. We get only what MSFT chooses to show. Sounds like another instance of a mega-corporation telling us what we they want us to know.

Sep 15 06:20 PM

[necniv:]

cool. but not sure if/how the multiple pages compare to the everything on one page view that Google currently has.

a perfect example is Craigslist. horrible layout, in my mind, but people love its simplicity -- one page, scroll.

Sep 15 07:21 PM

[Road Runner:]

This visual search is so special purpose that I don't see how it makes much difference in the battle with Google. I didn't see a single topic in the visual search application areas that make any difference to me. For sports figures, I'd just rather go to the league or ESPN web sites.

Sep 15 10:31 PM