Bing Visual Search lets searchers browse easily through a slick interface of “structured data sets from trusted partners” using Sliverlight technology. At launch, Bing Visual Search will earn a spot on the homepage search categories, just under Travel, although depending on the homepage image of the day, those links can sometimes get lost in the background colors of the photo.
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The concept behind Visual Search is simple: use clear imagery to help users sort through large sets of data easily. Certain categories of search lend themselves more easily to this than others, likely the reason why Bing has launched this feature in beta with a fairly limited set of visual information: cars, animals, people and products. Users must have Silverlight installed on their browsers to fully experience Visual Search.
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Research-based topics including politicians, US States and items like the periodic table are useful applications, but perhaps only to a limited audience, such as younger students working on school products. However, this also affords Bing the opportunity to appeal to a new generation of searchers, who are highly dependent on visual cues and ease of use, as iPods and iPhones have shown us. Of course, visualization does have additional appeal to the middle demographic using those products as well.
To limit your visual search, look for a group of narrowing limits located in the left margin of a visual search category page. Here's an example for U.S. Politicians. You can narrow by:
+ Party
+ State Represented
+ First Term
+ Gender
In this case, you can also place your cursor on top of an image and identify the politician by name, party affiliation, and age.
Once you've made your selection, the politicians name is automatically placed in the search box ready conduct a web search.
Compare the politicians search with this one for Billboard's past songs. On the songs home page you can sort by song title. In the left margin you can narrow by:
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