Bing Snapshots coming to Autosuggest?

When Dr. Antonio Gulli of Bing R&D blogged last week about Autosuggest, explaining in perhaps just a bit too much detail how Bing’s search box shows you a list of suggestions as you type, he didn’t mention this:

bingpreview

Thanks to another reader tip (thanks, Ryan!) and a Bing team that loves to test new stuff “in the wild”, it looks like Bing may be looking to take the Bing “Snapshot” idea even further, all the way to the home page and the Autosuggest box.

As usual with these types of tests (we tried it out here and aren’t seeing it), wider availability may be just around the corner, or it may never make it past the occasional spotting by an unsuspecting user.

It does seem clear that Bing is putting a lot of time and energy into “Snapshots”, those instant answer type boxes with a quick set of information about popular people, places, and things, and bringing them into the home page might be the next logical step.

What do you think, are Bing Snapshots useful?  Are they too hit and miss to be counted upon for a source of quick information (we’re never sure whether a personality is “big enough” to have made it to having their own Snapshot)?  Are they helpful when they do appear?  Is this a big enough differentiatior with Google and the like to even matter?

Let us know what you think, and keep the tips coming if you see any other new Bing behavior!


LiveSide.net