Microsoft has given Bing Video Search a long overdue makeover, and although it probably will not make Bing more popular than Google, the new search service is quite phenomenal.
The Redmond-based software company announced the revamped Bing Video Search in its own blog post, introducing a number of new features that make searching for videos, especially music videos, on Bing better than searching in Google's outdated video search platform.
Chief among these new features is a "hero" video that appears when users do a song search. The hero is the top result and is chosen based on its relevance to the search. For example, when users search for "Bad Blood" on, Bing will display Taylor Swift's official "Bad Blood" music video as the hero of that search. The video will appear larger than the rest of the thumbnails. It will also play automatically or the user can click the video to head straight to the website where it is hosted, which is typically Google's own YouTube.
Above the hero, users will see a module that displays other songs by the artist they just searched for, making it easier for them to search for the videos of these songs with just one click away. For instance, searching for "Bad Blood" will also bring up links to "Blank Space," "Shake It Off," "22" and Swift's other songs.
Inline with the hero, users will find the thumbnails of other related videos. These will include videos by the same artist or videos by other artists who belong in the same genre. As users scroll through the bottom of the page, Bing will display related artists and more search results and will allow users to load the next batch of results, if they haven't found the video they were looking for already.
Bing Video Search displays search results in thumbnails. Microsoft says it has also expanded the thumbnail size, so users can see more when they're looking for a certain video. The search results also include additional information about the videos, such as the length of the video, the date the video was posted and who posted the video.
Microsoft has been keen on improving the search experience on Bing. Although Google remains the king of search, Bing looks to be transforming into a competitive challenger. Most recently, Microsoft rolled out improvements to Bing Image Search to include more information about the search results and allow users to filter search results color, meta tags, relevant information and other options.
