Jan 3, 2013 at 4:35pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The most popular search engine in China, Baidu, is reportedly working on a new image search feature for facial recognition. Searchers can upload an image of a face and Baidu will try to return other photos of the same person, with information on the name of the person. There are reports that the feature works well with celebrities but not unknown or not-well known people. I tested this with my own image and it does return a match for me. Google does have a similar feature named Search By Image that has been around since June of 2011. Google also does have a feature in Google+ named [...]

Bing’s Image Search Gets A New Look, Updated Features

Jun 21, 2012 at 2:10pm ET by Matt McGee

Bing has updated its image search today with a new look and some tweaks to its search and discovery features. The first thing you'll notice, aside from the fact that puppies are really cute, is the tight tile-based layout that Pinterest often gets credited for making popular in the past year or so. Both Flickr and Yahoo have recently rolled out similar layouts -- Yahoo, in fact, rolled out a very similar look and feel just yesterday. Image search on Bing has also been updated to the minimalist user interface that Bing.com launched in early May. There are also bigger thumbnails and a [...]

Four Seriously Cool Information Resources

Mar 9, 2012 at 1:13pm ET by Gary Price

As a librarian, researcher and frequent blogger, I'm constantly coming across incredibly useful online information resources that are most effectively searched using their own site search tools, rather than relying on general-purpose engines to surface their valuable content. I plan to start writing about these on a regular, ongoing basis, using a bullet-point format that highlights the most useful features of each resource, rather than doing in-depth reviews. Without further ado, here are the first four (of many more to come). C-SPAN Video Library Cost: free In three words, amazin [...]

Flickr (Finally) Has An Android App

Sep 29, 2011 at 1:28pm ET by Matt McGee

It sure took a long time, but Flickr has finally launched its first Android app. Flickr has had an iPhone app for more than two years. The new Android app appears to offer several features not available on the iPhone version -- including filters to help edit photos before publishing, and additional sharing options. The Android app has been described as taking "a few cues from Instagram," which is also expected to launch its first Android app soon. Flickr's Android app is currently available is close to three dozen countries, which are listed on Flickr's help pages. Flickr Phot [...]

Twitter User Galleries Start Rolling Out Today

Aug 22, 2011 at 5:35pm ET by Matt McGee

Twitter has begun rolling out User Galleries, a new feature that should make the process of searching (and finding) images shared on Twitter a lot easier. The galleries will show images -- but not videos -- that are shared on Twitter via many of the major photo upload/sharing tools, such as TwitPic, yFrog, Instagram and Twitter itself. (Twitter began accepting direct photo uploads earlier this month.) If your account has access to the new feature, which was first spotted by SplatF, you'll see a "Recent Images" content section on your (or any) Twitter profile page, and it has a "view all" [...]

Twitter Taking Direct Photo Uploads, Will Create User Media Galleries

Aug 9, 2011 at 5:39pm ET by Matt McGee

Twitter says it's planning to create "user media galleries" that will house all of the media a user shares on the service -- including items uploaded and shared via other services. The news comes at the same time that Twitter has begun accepting direct photo uploads via the Twitter.com interface. As Mike Cane pointed out, some Twitter users are now seeing a pop-up window on their Twitter home page that introduces the new feature. Here's how it looks for me: The "Learn More" link leads to Twitter Help Center page that tells more about the company's plans for user media galleries: [...]

Up Close With Google’s Search By Image: Hits, Misses & More

Jun 17, 2011 at 3:50pm ET by Matt McGee

Earlier this week at its Inside Search event, Google announced a new way to search the web called Search By Image. Rather than enter a text query, Search By Image lets you begin your search with an image and Google will (try to) tell you what it is and show visually similar images. Search By Image isn't the first start-with-an-image search engine, and isn't even Google's first version of this kind of search tool. (TinEye has offered reverse image search since May 2008, and Google Goggles was Google's first search-by-image tool back in 2009.) But Google is the big and new kid on the block, s [...]

News Events, Tweeted Photos & The Permissions Mess

May 16, 2011 at 8:15pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Have you tweeted a great photograph that's gone viral, such as today's Space Shuttle launch as seen from a commercial airline flight? Getting credit for that, much less getting paid for it, seems to be a mess. It's been on my to do list to write about this issue for several weeks. It came up on the Read 2.0 mailing list that I'm part of back in March, about who has the right to grant permission when a photo is tweeted through one of the many sharing services out there. I may come back and do a more formal look with interviews with the sharing services and Twitter down the line. But giv [...]

An Illustrated Guide To Searching For Shared, Tweeted & “Realtime” Images

Mar 16, 2011 at 8:23pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Looking for images that are being shared and posted in realtime? That image search space has gotten more competitive, as Nachofoto reenters the field. Below, what it offers, along with general realtime image searching tips using other services like Topsy, Google Realtime Search and Twitter itself. I've used realtime search tools often, in order to see if people are tweeting and sharing images from news events, such as when the tsunami hit Crescent City. At times, they can provide a faster way to see images before news outlets themselves. Nachofoto Nachofoto launched in April 2010 but clos [...]

Gazopa Adds Stock Photos To Image Search Engine

Jan 18, 2011 at 10:31am ET by Matt McGee

Gazopa recently added stock photos to its image search engine. That isn't exactly huge news in and of itself, but the interesting thing about Gazopa is the multiple ways you can search for images. The company has added a "stock photo" tab on its search results page, so a keyword search for office furniture and a click on that tab brings up results like this. But it's not just about keyword search. With Gazopa, you have two other search options: upload an image or draw an image. In either case, Gazopa can now search for stock photos based on those prompts, too. At the moment, the [...]

Yahoo’s Irving: “Hell Yes” Yahoo Is Committed To Flickr

Jan 14, 2011 at 7:05pm ET by Matt McGee

Yahoo Product Chief Blake Irving just tweeted a ringing endorsement of Flickr, the company's photo sharing site/community. Q. Is Yahoo! committed to Flickr? A. Hell yes we are! We love this product and team; on strategy and profitable. The tweet is no doubt a response to questions earlier this week about Flickr's profitability and the possibility that Yahoo might shutter it (as other Yahoo properties apparently will be shuttered). Long-time Flickr user Thomas Hawk took a stab yesterday at estimating how much money Flickr brings in for Yahoo, and after using what I'd call some question [...]

Google Adds Images To Real-Time Results

May 21, 2010 at 5:17pm ET by Matt McGee

There's no formal blog post about this that we know of yet, just a tweet from Google's Jeremy Hylton announcing that images are now showing up in Google's real-time search results. Actually, you have to specifically request to include images with your results. After doing a search for "lunch" and clicking to see Updates from the left options menu, you then have to click the new "Updates with images" to see results like this. Note that the focus here is still on the update; this is not a real-time image search tool. If you're looking for that, here are several options: TwitCaps [...]

Flickr Adds People Tagging

Oct 22, 2009 at 9:30am ET by Barry Schwartz

Flickr, the popular photo sharing site, has added Facebook-like people tagging. The purpose behind people tagging is to easily tell people when you upload a picture that includes them. In short, it is a fun way to make your pictures more social and have discussions around your photos. Let me show you how it works. For example, the picture I took of Danny Sullivan with (former Microsoft's) Kevin Johnson at a past SMX conference was a nice photo of Danny to tag. I click on the "add person" link on the right side of the page and begin entering in Danny's name. Since Danny is a contact of [...]

Flickr Now Has An iPhone App

Sep 8, 2009 at 9:41am ET by Barry Schwartz

This morning, TechCrunch reported that Flickr's iPhone app has finally made it to the iTunes Store. It is free and can be downloaded by clicking here. I gave the app a quick go, and I really think it was done exceptionally well. Here is a walk through, screen by screen. The app icon is plain and simple: When you load up the app and past the start screen, images are displayed on the front page. But the images has slow motion to them, as they pane in and out between other images. If you are logged in, you get images from your friends as well. Here is a screen cap of that page: [...]

Five More Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

Jul 21, 2009 at 7:46am ET by Matt McGee

Have you ever needed to see the search results for another city -- maybe because you want to see what PPC ads are shown somewhere else? Have you ever needed to see search results from a different country, or in a different language? Maybe you're into real time search, and you'd love a place to find the latest photos and videos being shared on Twitter. Or perhaps you're planning a vacation abroad, but you're not sure when is the best time to visit Europe. It's time again for another roundup of the latest and greatest search tools and search engines, and in this article, I'll share five such [...]

Searchme Launches Multimedia Visual Search

Apr 30, 2009 at 3:59pm ET by Chris Sherman

Searchme has rolled out what it calls "true" blended search results, combining web, video, images, music and Twitter results organized by their relevance and playable inside the search results page. Searchme displays results as small versions of entire web pages, in a format that looks just like the "cover flow" display in iTunes. I love Searchme as a "recall engine," using it to find web pages or sites that I've previously visited but can't remember the site name or URL. The visual display of results, with the ability to quickly scroll through mini-versions of pages makes it easy to reco [...]

Yahoo Upgrades Flickr Mobile; Google Upgrades Picasa

Dec 4, 2008 at 7:36pm ET by Matt McGee

Photo search took a couple steps forward today with announcements from both Yahoo and Google. The news from Yahoo is a mobile makeover of its Flickr photo sharing site, while Google announced a variety of improvements to its Picasa photo service. Here's a look at the two announcements: Flickr's "Mobile Makeover" With visits to Flickr's mobile site (m.flickr.com) up more than 50% in the past year, the mobile site now shares much of the same features and functionality that Flickr users are familiar with on the main site. The Yahoo announcement trumpets the new video playback capabili [...]

Search Pictures With Pictures At Live Search

Dec 2, 2008 at 8:33am ET by Barry Schwartz

Live Search announced you can now use images to find similar images in Live Image Search. To use this feature, you go to Live Image Search, search for an image, hover over an image, and click on "show similar images." For example, I conducted an image search for myself, [barry schwartz], I then located a picture of myself. I hovered over the picture and selected "show similar images," which took me to this result set. I can see how Live Search felt those images are similar. Most the results are with blue shirts, most are of faces of people and so on. Here is a picture of where to find [...]

7 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

Oct 21, 2008 at 8:45am ET by Matt McGee

Google UK recently shared a list of 52 Things to Do on a variety of Google properties (found via Phil Bradley). It's a collection of tools and tips about using Google products and services for some everyday functions. If you're a search power user, you probably know most of them already. But Google's message seems to be, "Did you know you could do all this stuff on Google?" It got us thinking about non-Google search tools that might have slipped notice altogether, or just fallen off your radar. With that in mind, here's a list of seven search tools you may not know about ... but should. [...]

Google’s Pittman Talks About Visual Search & Facial Recognition Capabilities

Jul 15, 2008 at 8:45am ET by Barry Schwartz

Beet.TV interviewed R.J. Pittman, Google's Director of Product Management for Consumer Search Properties, about image search. The video is below, but here is my short summary of the interview. Pittman said Image Search has huge growth opportunity for Google. Google explained that text doesn't always describe the image, so they use other techniques. They use image processing, computer vision, and visual search (understanding something about the pixels in the picture). Visual search is something they are really excited about, including facial recognition. For example, imagine uploading your [...]

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