(2)
A Google Web Search Help thread reports some users seeing Google Image Search adding a left bar with added search options. Google Operating System posted screen shots of this in action, so I thought I share them here.
All the options displayed on the left are available image search refinements in the advanced search box or by changing the URL parameters. Google Operating System named this the "Toolbelt for Google Image Search."
I personally tried to replicate this on both Safari and Firefox for Mac and IE, Firefox and Chrome on a PC, without any luck.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Comments:
Sensi
07/31/2009 09:46 pm
I just saw the change (using Firefox 3.5), it's somewhat funny to see Google images mimicking Bing.
No Name
07/31/2009 10:14 pm
Or did Bing just mimic Google? Everyone knows that a change this big to the interface to a Google Search property isn't something that just coded in a day or two. It has likely been in development and testing for months and months and months. It has also been tested on a limited basis for a little while and is just now being rolled out to the masses. It's safe to say that employees of Microsoft are friends with employees of Google... as well as employees of Yahoo... so there really aren't any secrets between the three. There have been plenty of cases where Google has rolled out product changes BEFORE Microsoft rolls out with them, but it is pretty clear that Google was already aware of Microsoft's changes and whipped up their own version and released it before Microsoft. So, it isn't too far of a stretch that Microsoft could have made similar adjustments to Bing before releasing it to the masses, copying a feature Google had planned for a while. If you look at more than half of the features of Bing... these were features which were easily found on searchmash.com before it was taken down. SearchMash.com was an alternative search engine designed by Google to experiment with interface changes.