The world of search is expanding rapidly and one of the biggest areas of growth is visual search or the ability of something like Google to use images to find whatever it is you’re viewing.
This can work through a camera or via an image upload and, while the consumer applications are immediately apparent, some of the benefits outside of that aren’t as readily discernible. Nonetheless, most people think that visual search will end up overtaking text-based search in the future and Google is leading the charge on that front.
With the addition of Lens to Google search, you can do the above, 9 to 5 Google reports. We’ve discussed Google Lens in the past and this expansion to general search pretty much lines up with the trajectory the company outlined for it. One thing that is on the horizon according to 9 to 5 Google is the ability to scan an image and highlight multiple points or objects of interest.
And, again, we can see why that might be a desirable technology, especially if you’re selling stuff online. Imagine taking a picture of an outfit and finding its components simultaneously via search for one such example of how this might work.
Of course, for readers that follow us daily, you might recall our article yesterday about the Birda app which is basically like a kind of Pokemon Go plus search engine for birds. It has gamified features and uses image search technology to identify birds users encounter in the wild. For those birds that are too tough to identify, there’s a whole community to help out with that.
If you missed our article about Birda, you can read it here.
What is your opinion of visual search? How long do you think it will be before it overtakes traditional text-based searches? Let us know in the comments.
Check out some other headlines at this link.
