The future of image search

The surf wizard…the Photobot.

Give a keyword to a bot, it comes back with the image. Better, enter a concept, or a description and it will surf the World Wide Web and return an image. Whether from an amateur or pro, it won’t matter, because the image matters. Like information, the image will come to you, instead of you having to go to the image.

That is the future of image search.

If you are not in a rush, it could scout for days, even weeks, waiting for the perfect image. It could even use knowledge based intelligence to return the exact photograph, based on thousands, millions, gazillions of queries and rejects/approvals.  It would be hard not to find the right image anymore, extremely hard.

Sure, it could use similar search, as well as graphical input. The technology exists already; it just has not been out.  The reason is that technology would not be profitable for anyone but a geek who would not care about revenue.

Just imagine: You send an email with a photo description, and like a dog, it comes back with the right image. All you would have to do is license it properly and you’re done. No more web browsing in multiple password protected photo collections, no more spending hours on Flickr, Google images or others looking at irrelevant images. You would continue your work as the bot would do the search for you.

It shouldn’t be long before we see this, or a very similar product.

About the author

“This business has too many Surveyors and not enough Bohemians”      Roger Therond , legendary photo man, once said to a good friend of mine, Eliane Laffont. This blog is about restoring the balance and letting the Bohemians talk.

  Paul Melcher  has been named one of the “50 most influential individuals in American photography” by American Photo. He is currently senior vice president of the PictureGroup. He writes the Thoughts of a Bohemian blog