Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest Enters Final Stage

The Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest has entered its final stage, and Microsoft is inviting users to vote for their favorite entry out of the pictures submitted by the eight finalists. In total, Microsoft received no less than 9,400 submissions for the contest designed to allow end users to choose which photo will be displayed for an entire day as the background of the Bing search engine. The Redmond company announced the Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest at the start of July 2009, indicating that for the first time since the search engine wallpaper feature was introduced it would allow the community to influence what the Bing home page would look like.

“We are in the final round of voting for the Bing Home Page Photo Contest! Thousands of amazing photos have been submitted and voted for, which has made it very difficult to limit ourselves to only 8 finalists. During the selection process we looked for photos that would draw people in, tell a story and make you want to find out more. And of course, they had to work within the confines of the page and that adhere to the official guidelines. Thank you to everyone that has participated this far! It has been amazing to see all of the creativity and talent of the community,” revealed Elif Ertem, from the Bing team.

All that you have to do in order to be a part of the contest at this point in time is head over to Facebook and cast your vote. Microsoft has all the finalist images lined up and ready to be deemed as the Bing homepage background on August 3rd, 2009. Danielle Gorcica is the author of one of the images, included in this article, and my favorite, but the rest are equally interesting.

“The winner will be determined by the total number of votes. Go see, vote for, and share your favorite photo! Voting will close end of day, July 26th. The winner will be announced on July 27th and all of the top photos and photographers will be featured on our Facebook page. The winning photo will be showcased on the Bing Homepage on August 3rd for one whole day,” Ertem added.