Bing announced a new search experiment today called Bing Boards, which it describes as a way for people to create “highly specialized” content specifically for search. Bing notes that it doesn’t usually announce its experimental features, but felt it should shine the spotlight on this one.
“Bing Boards are visual collections of images, videos and links that tell a story from a unique point of view,” explains Bing Experiences program manager Chen Fang. “They are created by people who are passionate about the topics they blog, write or talk about – not companies or algorithms. Bing Boards are designed to be complementary to web search results, appearing in the middle column of Bing, and are aimed to help people to discover new, visually rich content.”
This is not something that is available to everyone. Right now, Bing is working with a small group of food and lifestyle bloggers, as well as those it deems “experts” and “social influencers”.
How widespread this feature becomes will be determined by how people interact with Bing Boards during this phase of the experiment.
Bing says this is the first of several upcoming social and community experiments it has in store.