Yes, I noticed it too. Google always seems to be changing things on me. But, this new image search is nice, and there are some great new features to this image search that will make your life a lot easier (and faster). It’s all about efficiency. Right? The great thing about the new image search results is the lack of text data. All that is shown are the images–and, you can get a good idea of what kind of image it is (landscape, portrait, small, big, etc…) before you ever even click it. Google calls this a “dense titled layout.”

Now, you can simply hover over an image and preview it. The image and information about where it came from are neatly presented. This means a faster route to the image(s) are looking for. The old image results had a cluster of text data that most people never bothered to even look at.

Another great feature is the fact that the images are delivered in context to the page it was featured on. When you click the image, it loads the page and displays that particular image in a “lightbox” type display. It bothered me at first, but I quickly realized context around the images are usually just as important–and sometimes there are other images around that image that might tickle your fancy a bit more.

Less is more, right? Not in this case. Now there are over 10 billion images on Google’s image search, compared to 250 million in 2001.

Yes, Microsoft Bing has already had some of these features. But do they have Image Swirl? Nah.

I’m a fan of Google. I don’t like most Microsoft products. That’s just how it is. But, Microsoft’s search engine Bing is pretty cool. And, it is start sucking up a little bit of Google’s market share. Experian Hitwise reported that Bing has increased in market share by 7%, occupying about 9.85% of the U.S. search engine market in June. While Microsoft’s gains are coming mostly at the expense of it’s partner Yahoo! (whose search operations it will soon absorb), new data shows that Bing is also chipping away at Google’s dominant position. But, keep in mind that Google still easily controls the market at around 72%, with Yahoo! trailing at 14%. Basically, Bing has grown 88% in just 12 months. Yahoo has declined 11.24% and Google is down 3.2% over that same period.

However, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Microsoft is going to have to do something extremely original to be able to split the search engine market share with Google. Google is too well known. It’s simple & clean, easy to use, and anyone that has ever used the internet knows what Google is and how to use it.

According to Billboard, Microsoft has reported that 10 percent of all internet search queries are entertainment-related. So, among all of the Bing upgrades in the past year, Microsoft has effectively positioned itself as a better portal for entertainment. Yes, Google does provide links to streaming audio in their search results just as Bing does. However, Bing has more of a complete package that includes additional details on tour dates, links to buy audio and video, and even lyrics. Oh, and out of all the entertainment related search queries, music lyrics alone account for 70 percent of those searches.

However, Google plans to launch a music download service (along side their social network) that is tied to its search engine. Google announced at a developers conference in May that they have aquired Simplify Media–which is a “content-syncing” technology that can automatically sync and stream music purchased online to any Android-based phone.

So, with Google working to provide automatic “sync-and-download/stream” services with Android phones, and Bing providing the same service with Zune and Windows-based phones, will we be seeing an iTunes.com in the near future? I think yes.