MySpace Quietly Launches Site-Wide Image Search

MySpace has introduced a new image search feature to its integrated search engine, allowing users to quickly search through photos shared by their friends and the MySpace community. While MySpace did not officially announce the new feature, the company has confirmed that it recently went live, and indexes around 3 billion of the site’s photos. The addition reflects MySpace’s apparently increasing focus on its search engine, which also includes the site’s video and music content along with a Google-powered web search.

Users are given the option to search through photos their friends have shared, those with viewing rights set to ‘public’ by other MySpace users, or images on Photobucket, which was acquired by MySpace’s parent company in 2007. MySpace says that all results are shown through a “social lense”, which means that the engine pays attention to keywords in your profile and who your friends are to try to generate the most relevant results...