Photo sharing website Pinterest will introduce a new feature that will allow users to search the website without any text.
On Sunday, Nov. 8, Pinterest announced that from today, Nov. 9, the company will launch a new tool that will allow users to make a visual search with an existing pin. Users can also zoom in a specific part of the image and get results for similar pins.
"Tomorrow we're rolling out a visual search tool that lets you zoom in on a specific object in a Pin's image and discover visually similar objects, colors, patterns and more. For example, see a lamp in a Pin of a living room that you're interested in? Tap the search tool in the corner of a Pin, drag the zoom tool over the lamp and scroll down for visually similar Pins," says Andrew Zhai, a software engineer in the visual discovery team of Pinterest.
Kevin Jing, an engineering manager at Pinterest, wrote in a blog post that there are occasions when users spot something they like on Pinterest and would like to know what it's called or how to find it in real life. The new visual search tools lets users do exactly that.
More than 100 million active users of Pinterest around the globe will benefit from the new feature. The novel visual search feature of Pinterest builds upon the services, which the company introduced over the last few years. In Oct. 2015, Pinterest introduced related pins that showed results based on the things that a user saved in pins or boards they liked. In early 2015, Pinterest enhanced the feature and utilized it for recognizing objects.
Guided Search - that was launched in 2014 - is another important component of the newest visual tool. Guided Search offers users pins that are based on what they have typed. Kevin Ma, a software engineer at Pinterest, also stated that Guided Search was one of the key drivers of Pinterest engagement and Pinterest search traffic.
Even though the visual search of Pinterest will help users, other companies such as Facebook, Google and Snapchat offer a similar feature to their users.
Photo: Mike Mozart | Flickr
