Google is launching a revamped version of Google Image Search, which starts rolling out to users today.
The announcement was delivered by Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, here at a press conference at the company’s offices in San Francisco. In a colorful room filled with journalists, Mayer and her team dived into the current technology underlying Google Image Search, but quickly turned their attention towards an array of new features that will greet searchers starting today.
Here’s what the company had to say about the updated version of Google Image Search:
The New Google Images: Press Conference Notes
At the start of its press conference, Google demonstrated some of Image Search’s current features. One of those features is Similar Images, a tool that recognizes images and finds similar images. Google Color Search (find images based on color) was also demoed.
Google summed up the current version of Image Search by saying that it is a simple interface with powerful tools. There areover 1 billion page views a day, with 10 billion images indexed. However, the company believes that it can do better.
Thus, the revamped version of Google Image Search. The new Google Images is a far more visual interface. Instead of liens of images with text, Google Image Search results now display larger tumbnails with very little text. Text information such as file names, file size and URL are now part
The landing page has also been massively revamped. The familiar Google Images frames have been removed in favor of displaying a full size image on top of the destination website. Once you close the image, you are taken to the actual destination page, rather than a Google-framed website.
Finally, Google has announced a product for advertisers: Google Image Search Ads, a new image-based ad format for Image Search. In its Q&A session, Google stated that there will be a premium for Google Image Search ads — not surprisingly, they will cost more than text ads.
