DuckDuckGo became one of the first search engines to incorporate bitcoin prices into search results back in April (although it should be said that Bing added a nifty bitcoin conversion tool in February). And now they’re taking it a step further by providing users the opportunity to check the balance of a specific bitcoin address right from their search engine.
Here’s a screenshot from a random address I picked from Blockchain.info:
You can see immediately below the search bar the balance of the address, which is incredibly useful. All one needs to do to make use of the feature is run a search for the bitcoin address.
This function is apparently working with the assistance of the block chain API from Chain.com, and for users of the search engine, might eliminate a few steps for those who are checking into balances.
The timing for this addition is interesting, especially for this week’s happenings.
You may have recalled that earlier this week, Yahoo Finance added bitcoin prices to their system, allowing users to read news, view charts and check out latest prices.
Just one day later, Google Finance did the same. Again, news, charts, and other useful information.
So it would seem that we’re in a sort of crypto-race when it comes to search engines and the information they supply to end users about digital currency.
The question now is: how long until Google and Yahoo follow suit?