Over 70 million registered users worldwide will be able to enjoy Photobucket's new Visual Search feature, powered by Microsoft's alternative to Flash, Silverlight. In order to evolve the online digital image repository, Photobucket worked with Microsoft and EffectiveUI, indicating that the challenge was to grow beyond the limitations associated with static HTML webpages. At the same time, Photobucket was looking for an entirely new picture search and browsing experience for its website, and Silverlight was just what the doctor ordered.

“After five seconds in it, it feels different,” revealed Will Tschumy, a member of Microsoft’s User Experience Evangelist Group. “It removes a lot of the text and reloading time that users have had to wade through. Presenting results as images and then using a given image as the next query to find another set of images is really just a different way of interacting with the content.”

But Microsoft and EffectiveUI took Visual Search beyond Photobucket, building an intimate level of integration with Windows Live Messenger. EffectiveUI developer Jordan Snyder explained that the work was focused on bridging the Photobucket and Windows Live Messenger communities, while taking Photobucket Visual Search beyond actions such as search and navigation tasks to enable end users to easily share images with each other. But for this detail, Microsoft and EffectiveUI had to turn to additional technologies, besides Silverlight.

“We’re allowing Photobucket users to share images with their Live Messenger friends with a single click,” Snyder stated. “So we’re making that process of taking the URL for a picture, dropping it into an IM window and sending it off super fast and easy for people, which fits right into the flow of a typical IM conversation. Those are things you cannot do with static HTML, but Silverlight working with rich AJAX and XHTML enables this fluid experience to come together.”