Bing’s Visual Search Needs to Be Seen to Be Believed!

By Andy Beal on September 14, 2009

Bing’s Visual Search Needs to Be Seen to Be Believed!

bing-logo1 When the folks at 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

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5 comments on “Bing’s Visual Search Needs to Be Seen to Be Believed!”

Dean Says:

September 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

I’d love to see it but why am I forced to download Silverlight? Leave it to Microsoft to always make it more difficult than it should be.
Andy Beal Says:

September 14th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

@Dean – OK, but why do so many people balk at downloading Silverlight, yet if a tool requires some update to Adobe Flash, we don’t question it?

Maybe not you, but I suspect a lot of people are making a bigger deal out of downloading Silverlight, just because it’s a MSFT app.
Rob Kingston Says:

September 14th, 2009 at 4:35 pm

Damn – still not available Down under. That looks seriously cool. All MSFTs image searching is top notch – I wonder why?
Dean Says:

September 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am

@Andy – Fair point. I am just saying that if MSFT wants people to switch from Google to Bing, throwing up roadblocks is a bad way to do it. As soon as I met that roadblock I said “F-it” and I imagine others will too.

I just want to do a search. Period. I don’t want to have to download software to do a search. Don’t make it difficult for me. Google=simple. MSFT=difficult.

As for Flash – it’s agnostoc and discriminates equally against all solutions

Flash is agnostics and
Cory Huff Says:

September 15th, 2009 at 11:34 am

My questions is whether the visual interface is enough to pull market share. I can see right away how sticky it is. I just wonder if it’s so different that it won’t get adopted.
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