14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is offering professional and amateur photographers around the world a chance to make their photo the background for the Bing search engine for a total of 24 hours. Bing backgrounds are a feature introduced originally with Live Search that has remained unchanged even as the company killed its old search engine in favor of the “sound of found” branded service. On July 1, the software giant informed that it had debuted the Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest, a challenge designed to allow one winner to have a favorite summer travel photo featured on Bing.
“We continue to hear that one [of] the favorite features of Bing is the rich and interactive daily image that appears on the Bing homepage. In fact, one of the questions we get asked the most is whether people can submit their own pictures. And now we can say yes! We've launched our first ever photo submission contest on Facebook. The theme is “summer travel,” and the winner will have his or her photo displayed on the Bing homepage on Monday, August 3rd,” stated Stephanie Horstmanshof, Bing editorial lead.
Microsoft is accepting only images in the JPEG file format as submissions for the contest. According to the Redmond company, all images must be at least 970px in width and 528px in height, and as for resolution, the software giant noted that the higher the better. At the same time, photographers are advised to send Microsoft images in the original size and aspect ratio, in order to allow for the maximum flexibility when it comes down to adapting the content to the Bing home page.
The company indicated that it was looking for “The image [that] should make you want to find out more about it. The image should draw you in and be a starting place for exploring Bing. The subject of the photo must provide enough interest to program all the content that we use to support that exploration. Strive for subtlety and poetry. You shouldn't have to know that it's Halloween, Columbus Day, or Boss's Day to enjoy the photo. [But] No recognizable people; no 3rd party trademarks and no objectionable content.”