As part of its continuing effort to catch up with Google in the search engine arena, Microsoft recently announced that its Bing search engine has been enhanced to allow users to perform image-based searches. According to InformationWeek, Bing’s new visual search capability is currently in the beta stage and is available in only a limited number of search categories. The target application for visual searching is consumers searching for products. The visual search capability is enabled by Microsoft’s Silverlight Web display technology.

Google currently demands an 83% share of the worldwide search market, so Microsoft has an uphill battle to wage.

Twitter has unveiled a new home page at Twitter.com. The new page features new branding, with an emphasis on searching and social networking, neatly summed up by the phrase “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” A search bar is included on the page, which illustrates that Twitter hopes to make more money from advertisers in the future. The Google model has shown that searching is a way to connect users with advertisers. The new look for Twitter should also help new users navigate through the process of getting starting with tweeting.