Pinterest has added something new that will give users a faster, better, way to search Pinterest. They are calling it their Visual Search Tool. This new way to search Pinterest is being rolled out to all users as of November 9, 2015.
The Visual Search Tool allows users to crop an image that they see on Pinterest in order to include only the portion that they are interested in. The example they give on their official blog shows a person cropping a photo of a room in order to focus on the lamp that hangs over the table. Pinterest will automatically bring up “visually similar results” of various other pins of lamps that look quite a bit like the one you are interested in.
What’s the point of this new search tool? A person could use this tool to find out the name, or brand, or designer of the lamp that they are thinking about buying. If they can find it – they just might make that purchase today. In addition, the new search tool makes browsing through Pinterest more efficient.
The Pinterest blog says that people can use the new search tool “on your phone and the web”. In my experience, the tool cannot be used on the Pinterest website, but maybe that is because I am using Safari. I will assume that it works quite well on the Pinterest app (but haven’t actually tried it there myself).