Today Pinterest has released Lens for all users, a new feature in its app that the company hopes will help it lead the way in visual search. In February, it launched Lens for a small group of people for closed testing and has now decided to release the beta version to everyone. To access the new feature update your app and then simply tap the search bar then go to the red camera button and take a photo of what you want to search. Once you’ve done that Pinterest will give you a long list of like ideas to inspire you. You can even pull in pictures from your camera roll and get results. The company also included some Lenses of its own to further inspire you.
Lens falls under a new marketing push Pinterest calls Visual Discovery. The feature makes it easier to find things you see in the real world. For instance, you see a cute beret, but you can’t remember what it’s called. Just snap a picture and you’re off with the search. Lens certainly takes the app to the next level however, users should keep in mind it is still in beta so it’s not always going to run smoothly. That’s why the company stresses the need for feedback. So if you take a picture of shoes and you get sunglasses in your results they encourage people to use the new + button and let Pinterest know so it can make adjustments. Once Lens has gotten its recognition patterns running correctly the company will then release it from beta.
The company is also pushing for a social media campaign using #PinterestLens. It wants you to get a screengrab of your results even if it’s a fail and post it on social media so it can see what you are “Lensing.” This tops off a busy week for Pinterest as this announcement is one of three the company made. The first announcement was on Tuesday when it debuted its new Chrome extension, which makes it easy to save any picture from the web to one of your boards. The second happened on Wednesday when the company revealed it has acquired the community driven app Jelly for an undisclosed amount of money. Both founders of Jelly will be joining Pinterest.
