Bing has announced its next tactic to compete with Google in search. They are taking image searching a step further with “Visual Search”. Visual Search returns thumbnail images for specific search results. The main feature of Visual Search is the ability to refine a query, thus making the thumbnails that no longer match fly off the results page. The remaining thumbnails are in turn resorted.
The value of Visual Search is the blending of structured data into search results. Bing is pushing the envelope by returning structured data in a wider range of searches, including sports, travel, and product reviews.