Apr 28, 2008 at 5:24am ET by Danny Sullivan

A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search from the New York Times covers a new research paper (PDF format) from Google that talks about a way of ranking images based on analyzing "visual links" between them. Image search at the major search engines today largely relies on looking at words that are used around images -- on the pages that host them, in image file names, and in ALT text associated with them. No real image recognition is done by any of the majors. Search for "apples," and they haven't actually somehow scanned the images itself to "see" i [...]

Yahoo Including Facebook Profile Images In Search Results

Apr 22, 2008 at 10:52am ET by Greg Sterling

The Digital Inspiration blog is reporting that Facebook profile images are now appearing as thumbnails in general Yahoo search results (as opposed to image search results). I tried several times to find the images, using different people's names along with related phrases including "Facebook profile," and was unable to duplicate the results. (Google has been including Facebook Profile data in search results for some time.) [...]

Google: We Didn’t Censor Aboutrika’s Gaza T-Shirt Photo

Feb 11, 2008 at 10:13am ET by Danny Sullivan

Google's Matt Cutts has lent his personal blog to the Google Images search team so they could debunk a rumor that Google censored an image of an Egyptian football player, Mohammad Aboutrika, stripping off his team jersey during the African Cup Of Nations to show a "Sympathize With Gaza" T-shirt underneath. No censoring, says Google -- it was just a problem with Google Images being stale. I can totally believe that explanation. It's just embarrassing that it's the same explanation Google gave when a similar question over Google Images came up in 2004. Over four years later, you'd exp [...]

Digg Those Pics & Only Those Pics At Digpicz.com

Sep 4, 2007 at 9:09am ET by Barry Schwartz

Every wanted to see the highest rated images over at Digg? Digpicz.com has launched to serve that purpose as the "unofficial Digg Picture Browser," commentsStan Schroeder. Digpicz uses the Digg API to aggregate images from Digg and place them in one location. Digg has sections for news, video, and podcasts, but it does not have a section devoted to images, something many on Digg have wanted. That is where Digpicz comes in. You can learn more about how the creator made Digpicz work at his blog. Here is a screen capture: [...]

Live Image Search Adds Face, Portrait, B/W, & Related Features

Jul 30, 2007 at 8:12am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Live Search Blog announced new image search features over the weekend. The new features include a way to search for images of people by face, portrait, black & white and related people. Here are examples of the new features in action, by searching for [paris]: pairs without any filter, mostly shows Paris Hilton but does show an image of the Eiffel Tower paris filter:face mostly shows face shots of Paris Hilton paris filter:portrait shows more full body shows of Paris Hilton paris filter:bw shows images of Paris Hilton, the Eiffel Tower and other images in black and white The [...]

Yahoo Images Gains Flickr Photos

Jun 26, 2007 at 10:03am ET by Barry Schwartz

Yahoo Image Search now contains photos from Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing service, ironically catching Yahoo up to Google, Microsoft and Ask.com -- all of which already included Flickr photos in their respective image search engines. Yahoo blogged about the change: Now when you use Yahoo! Image Search, in addition to the billions of images we crawl from the Web, you've got access to over 300 million images from the amazing community of photographers on Flickr. As noted in both the Yahoo post and Search Engine Journal's story on the integration, Flickr photos shown in Yahoo Image Search ha [...]

Exalead Adds Image Search, Facial Recognition Capabilities

May 8, 2007 at 1:13pm ET by Chris Sherman

Exalead, a search engine that's popular among librarians and information professionals thanks to its array of advanced search capabilities, has added an image search function for more than 1 billion images on the web. Included in the image search tool is the ability to drill down on human faces, thanks to integration of LTU Technologies' leading facial recognition software. Image search functions include: Image size: Filter images by small, medium or large to find the right image quickly Wallpaper: Sort results by an image's resolution Image Color: Narrow down search results to only black [...]

MySpace To Buy Photobucket For $300 Million

May 8, 2007 at 1:03pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Valleywag broke the news that MySpace would be acquiring Photobucket for about $300 million. Many blogs are discussing that the purchase price was a steal in comparison to Google's purchase of YouTube. Techcrunch also looks at the overlap of MySpace users and Photobucket users, saying there is "nearly 100% overlap in users." More coverage at Techmeme. [...]

Goodbye Yahoo Photos; Yahoo Loves Flickr More

May 4, 2007 at 7:51am ET by Danny Sullivan

TechCrunch and USA Today have news that Yahoo is to close its popular Yahoo Photos service completely in the coming months, telling people to either switch to Flickr or leave to a number of other competing photo sharing services. From USA Today: Yahoo has said that it kept both services going after the acquisition because they appealed to different audiences. But Thursday, it said in a statement that Yahoo Photos was closing because of the changing nature of the Internet. Digital photography has evolved "into a social activity that allows people to communicate and connect," Yaho [...]

Return To The Search Engine Shoot-Out

May 3, 2007 at 4:03am ET by Phil Bradley

My colleague Chris Sherman briefly looked at the PC World ‘Search Engine Shoot-out’ article the other day, and I also mentioned it in my own weblog. I read through the article briefly, but something about it kept nagging me, so I wanted to go back and look at it in rather more detail. The more I look at it, the more concerns I have over the piece. The first concern of course is the idea that there’s a ‘best search engine’. There’s very little difference between saying that and saying that there is a ‘best reference book’ or ‘best President’ or ‘best television programme� [...]

Teaching Google To See Images

Apr 5, 2007 at 5:22pm ET by Chris Sherman

"Image search" is really something of a misnomer, because current generation search engines rely primarily on text to "understand" all types of content, including images. When you search for images on Google, Flickr or most other search engines, they aren't examining the pixels that make up images. Instead, search engines look for clues that might identify relevant images—clues like descriptive filenames, tags, text near an image (think captions) and even the anchor text of links that point directly at image files. Search engines take this awkward approach because it's much more difficu [...]

Happy Birthday, Flickr: Web 2.0 Pioneer Turns Three

Feb 27, 2007 at 4:43pm ET by Greg Sterling

On March 3rd, Flickr turns three. Flickr is in many ways the company that helped define "Web 2.0" and was its poster child for quite some time. And Yahoo's acquisition of Flickr, in March, 2005, after only a year in existence and, even then, a longish courtship was one of the best consumer moves Yahoo's made in the past couple years. Flickr and the community mindset it brought along, not to mention tagging, have been widely integrated across numerous Yahoo properties. Here's the Business 2.0 article, "The Flickrization of Yahoo" that appeared in late 2005. Indeed, Flickr has had a "cultura [...]

Polar Rose Promising Face Recognition Image Search

Dec 19, 2006 at 9:16am ET by Danny Sullivan

I got a press release today from Polar Rose, a new company promising to bring facial recognition technology to those seeking images from across the web. In other words, want to find all the pictures of Bill Clinton? Polar Rose says it will make it happen through a browser plug-in that works with existing photo services, as well as through partnerships. If this sounds familiar, I'll revisit Riya's recent foray and back away from facial recognition. The full press release is below. In short, Polar Rose says that sometime between January 1 and March 31 of next year, they'll release a browse [...]

Google’s Picasa Add Photo Search & Other Features

Dec 14, 2006 at 4:49pm ET by Barry Schwartz

The Google blog announced that Picasa, Google's photo sharing application, now enables you to search photos. You can search your own or your friends' public albums captions, album titles, and album descriptions. Picasa also added the ability to print your pictures with Shutterfly or PhotoWorks and a feature to enable you to upload your videos for easy sharing in Picasa. [...]

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