Over the past few weeks, Microsoft rolled out a new feature to Bing Search called ‘Timeline’ that showcases the important events in the lives of influential or famous people. In an official blog post today, Microsoft is showcasing this feature and how it helps deepen our understanding of people we search.
“At Bing we are continuing to expand our collection of entities (people, places and things) and deepen our understanding about them. Our goal is to provide you with more insight into these entities so you can quickly discover useful information and in turn, get things done faster when you search on Bing,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.
Microsoft’s algorithm has already generated timelines for close to a million famous people. However, the algorithm is smart in that it will determine if you would be more interested in other types of relevant information rather than seeing the historical timeline. For example, searching for Prince or Britney Spears will showcase their songs, rather than a timeline. This is indented to save space and reduce page load times. The idea here is simple. Those who are searching for an artist or movie star are likely interested in their content, rather than their timeline, as opposed to someone famous like Theodore Roosevelt.
Take a look at the below image for an example of the timeline feature in action. Head over to Bing Search and try out the new feature!
