GOORAMA!

As part of a move to bring its Internet content to life for web searchers, Bing’s homepage on Wednesday features a stunning time-lapse video of Arizona’s desert.

Bing’s homepage typically features a different photograph as its backdrop each day, but it’s not the first time it has touted video instead.

“We aim to do a few videos on the homepage each month,” Stephanie Hortsmanshof, senior managing editor at Bing, told Mashable. “We sprinkle them in so it’s meant to be a surprise.”

The video homepages first launched in September 2011 for users with an HTML-5 enabled browser. For those without a modern browser, the site will display the still photography.

“We toyed with adding motion to the page for a while, but didn’t want video files to impact page performance,” Hortsmanshof said. “Once we had parameters of what people’s machines could support, my team came in and figured out the motion piece and what types of content it should feature and where the motion should be.”

Working with more than 20 map and stock image/video providers, Bing carefully plans what the homepage will look like each day. The images and videos are hand-selected each day by the site’s Managing Editor Kristin Dean.

“Anything that is stunning and beautiful that matches our style and adds a breadth of life is what we are looking for,” Hortsmanshof said.

Some of the most-buzzed video homepages on Bing include fireworks over Hong Kong for New Year, the Northern Lights in January and a fluttering humming bird in June.

“We get a lot of feedback from people on Twitter, along with lots of requests for adding sound or developing a sort of ‘smell vision’ so they can smell the ocean,” Hortsmanshof said. “If we do add sound in the future, we will approach that carefully.”

For a deeper look at the process and what it’s like to be the person who selects Bing’s homepage images and videos, check out the video below.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2012/07/18/bing-homepage-video/