Future of web search is ‘3D’ and ‘visual’, expert tells C4

According to Weitz, the concept of 3D searching is already brought into the mainstream with applications such as Google Streetview.

Weitz, who is charged with luring more users to Microsoft’s search engine Bing away from rival Google search, also told C4 that amid internet’s evolution, it is crucial to understand the user’s search habits and his information needs.

He told the channel that currently, search “isn’t just where it needs to be” and that only 25% of all searches conducted has a satisfactory result on the first attempt. “You should expect better results, richer results. Bing's creators are hoping their "visual search" will create a similar experience in areas such as online shopping, perhaps to the exclusion of keywords altogether.”

“People are using search engines to make fairly complex decisions, which is really bizarre when you think about how they began. Ten years ago it was simply a directory, now people are trying to figure out the best flight prices using a general purpose search engine.”

Coming heavily on Google’s search interface which providing links to queries rather than answering them, Weitz said: “The last piece is presenting the results not as simply more links, but as knowledge that we've either licensed from a provider or knowledge we've calculated from our huge computer resource.

"The whole point of search is to find something you don't know about, so why do we expect you to know it? We should help you on that journey." He said that in its quest for a 3D search tool, Bing is capitalising on social media sites such as Twitter where users are on both content providers and searchers.

Finally he added: "When you have 2,000 items, like handbags or cameras or TVs, the ability for a person to flip through [visual] results as well as structured data, like prices, is still a search but not necessarily what we think of as a search. We think that's a different experience that works better there than a bunch of links."

In its bid to increase the market share, Bing has already teamed up with answer engine Wolfram Alpha to bolster its results on areas including nutrition and mathematics. Bing also launched a UK version of its search engine this week to provide more localised, customised search results.