September 19, 2007

Flickr and Explorer Bar Expand in Image Search

Building on our initial announcement of Flickr’s integration into Yahoo! Image Search earlier this summer, we’ve now expanded the integration to the countries, regions and languages listed below. You can now access many Flickr images when doing your Yahoo! Image Search from the following countries:

    Asia, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Canada , Cade (Brazil), Canada (in French), Swiss, Swiss (in French), Swiss (in Italian), Catalan, Germany, Denmark, Espanola, Spain, France, Indonesia, Indonesia (English), India, Italy, Malaysia, Malaysia (English), Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, United Kingdom & Ireland, Vietnam, New Zealand, Philippines (Tagalog), Mexico, and Japan.

With this launch, Flickr metadata like title, tags and comments can be used to surface Flickr results on Yahoo! Image Search results pages, making many of the millions of photographs from the Flickr community available to Yahoo! Image Search users. For example, type in ‘Tower Bridge‘ and the ranking algorithm looks at metadata from the images and determines the rank order for the results.

Of course, these are photos marked public by Flickr users; we’re not showing photos marked as private.

With this expanded integration, users can further discover and explore the world of images. Here’s a snapshot of Flickr images surfacing on the Yahoo! Image Search results page for ‘Tower Bridge’:

Flickr UK Search 2.JPG

In addition to the internationally expanded Flickr/ Yahoo! Image Search integration, we’ve rolled out a new feature called Explorer Bar to enhance the Yahoo! Image Search experience. We introduced the Explorer Bar for searchers who want to discover more by looking at what other users are searching for. Today we have it for entertainment and location-related content, and we plan to expand to other categories in the future.

For example if you search for ‘Harry Potter‘, you find images of him as well as an Explorer Bar showing you a preview of images of other characters you might want to search for.

The same goes for cities. If you’re planning a trip to ‘London‘ and would like to check out some pictures, the Explorer Bar also shows you other interesting places that might strike your fancy.

So the next time you’re looking for an image, check out the new features on Yahoo! Image Search and let us know what you think!

Deepali Tamhane
Product Manager, Yahoo! Multimedia Search

Comments

  1. Very nice update !

    Yahoo! is walking on the real way to Web 2.0.

    I’m trying to test Yahoo! Image ranking algorithm.

  2. Real nice! Good resources here, i found lots of interesting things here. Your web site is helpful. All the best!

  3. Big improvements like this makes web users browse more on Yahoo. Thanks.

  4. I don’t see China in the list. Am I missing something?

  5. “Content Integration” is the next years challenge on the web, especially for search engines. This change is a major step in that direction and it will improve web experience for all of those who use Yahoo Services. Nice job, guys!

  6. All right ! It’s nice to publish username on search results. But, picture legend (size…) is absent !

  7. Um, Yahoo! Search has been broken nearly all day. Sometimes it says it’s broke and to try again in a few mins, others it throws up massively incorrect results.

    http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3391/ummdelawarehb0.jpg

  8. Nice feature. Is is possible to offer this as part of a Yahoo api?

  9. I have a flickr account where i submit my pics…
    Its really helpful in uploading pics on blog and on sites…

  10. Real nice! Good resources here, i found lots of interesting things here. Your web site is helpful. All the best!

  11. I don’t see China in the list. Am I missing something?

  12. From what I’ve seen Explorer Bar works like a suggestion (topic selection) at the bottom. I think it is a perfect addition to the interface and helps user to find right images. It clogs the screen a bit, but I think it is worth it.

  13. Although the picture should’ve been one with your hat off. Just to drive the point about the hair home.

  14. All right ! It’s nice to publish username on search results. But, picture legend (size…) is absent !

  15. Real nice! Good resources here, i found lots of interesting things here. Your web site is helpful. All the best!

  16. From what I’ve seen Explorer Bar works like a suggestion (topic selection) at the bottom. I think it is a perfect addition to the interface and helps user to find right images. It clogs the screen a bit, but I think it is worth it.

  17. I have a flickr account where i submit my pics…
    Its really helpful in uploading pics on blog and on sites…

  18. Nice feature. Is is possible to offer this as part of a Yahoo api?

  19. Real nice! Good resources here, i found lots of interesting things here. Your web site is helpful. All the best!

  20. Real nice! Good resources here, i found lots of interesting things here. Your web site is helpful. All the best!

  21. Um, Yahoo! Search has been broken nearly all day. Sometimes it says it’s broke and to try again in a few mins, others it throws up massively incorrect results.