OK, let’s get to straight to the big controversy: The people responsible for the daily image on Microsoft’s search home page swear they weren't taking a swipe at Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system in February, when they published an attention-grabbing picture of a real snow leopard -- accompanied by text noting that the big cats can’t roar.

Totally unintentional, vows Stephanie Horstmanshof, editorial lead for Microsoft’s search group.

“We weren’t trying to send any hidden messages to Apple or to anyone else," she said, laughing as she remembered the tortured attempts by technology bloggers to find meaning in the picture.

It's no wonder the attention caught the team by surprise. Back then, it was hard to find people who knew what Microsoft's search site was, let alone used it. But the recent rebranding of Live Search as "Bing" has raised the awareness of the company's search initiative, at least temporarily, and put a spotlight one of its signature features -- those distinctive pictures on the Bing.com home page.

[Follow-up: How to get Microsoft to use your photo for the Bing home page]

The images fill the background of the page, changing every day to offer vivid glimpses into different places around the world. Microsoft embeds small “hotspots” in the photos that pop out when people hover over them -- displaying information related to the images, with clickable links leading to search results designed to showcase Bing’s features.

The idea is to draw people in and “take them on a little journey,” Horstmanshof said. “If you have time to explore a little bit, this is our way of taking you into the site, and showing you what we’ve got, but in a fun, thoughtful way – as opposed just throwing some links at you.”

Microsoft actually added the feature to its Live.com search home page last year, but many people didn’t notice until Bing launched.

“There’s a lot of eyeballs on it because we’re getting a lot of press,” she said. “Live.com was not the most publicized of sites. A lot of people didn’t go to the home page – they searched from the toolbar. Now, we have a lot of people saying that they specifically search from the home page because the image is there, and they like looking at it."

Capitalizing on Internet buzz

In fact, for all of Microsoft's attempts to cast Bing as a brand new site, many of its features already existed in the earlier Live Search. Kip Kniskern, a blogger who follows the company’s online initiatives on LiveSide.net, cited a recent case in which Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis pointed to a Bing trend-tracking feature called xRank as if it were new -- even though Microsoft introduced it long ago.

“Now that they’ve drawn this line in the sand and called it Bing, it’s getting a lot of attention,” Kniskern said.

The question now is whether Microsoft can convert that attention into significant progress against search titan Google and No. 2 Yahoo in the market. After years of work and billions of dollars invested, the Redmond company was still stuck at just above 8 percent market share in the United States before launching Bing earlier this month -- compared with about 64 percent for Google.

Since then, some early returns show Microsoft improving its position following the Bing launch.

"The marketing is probably doing something," said Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land editor in chief. "The marketing is making people take a look. But whether that’s going to translate into long term gains, it's too early to tell."

The company's marketing campaign is valued at a reported $80 million to $100 million. But the daily Bing image often generates its own buzz, with users of Twitter and other social networks frequently passing around the link when they see a picture they like. As noted by blogger Long Zheng, who maintains an archive of the Bing daily images, the effect is not unlike NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

One catch: A fondness for the Bing pictures doesn't necessarily make for a faithful user of Microsoft’s underlying search engine.

“Awsome pic," wrote Twitter user beemaan this week. "But moving to bing over google ... That's not going to happen anytime soon for me!"

Other people like Bing but would rather skip the pictures. In one sign of that mindset, minimalists have been circulating a special code -- ?rb=0 -- that deactivates the photo when appended to the Bing address. (Use the code ?rb=1 if you want to get the picture back.)

How the pictures are picked

Whether or not people ultimately like the results, there’s no disputing that the team behind the Bing.com pictures takes its job seriously. The process starts with the pictures, licensed from a variety of image providers. The team conducts image-review sessions every two weeks, often sorting through hundreds of potential photos set aside in advance by a photo editor.

    Horstmanshof

It might sound like a cushy job, but it’s not enough to just pick a beautiful image, Horstmanshof explained. A picture needs to make someone want to know more, and provide enough material to create an interesting feature.

After the images are chosen, they go to writer Amy Leigh Morgan, who creates what Microsoft calls “hotspots” – the pop-out factoids that connect each photo to a series of search results. Apart from the standard “who, what, when, where and why,” they also shoot for one “wacky” element -- an off-the-wall piece of trivia.

For example, earlier this week, a picturesque scene of New Zealand included a hotspot that said, “Astonishing beauty is one hallmark of this place. These two guys are another,” linking to a video-search results page for New Zealand’s own “Flight of the Conchords” comedic musical duo.

Currently, Microsoft offers one picture in the U.S. and another visible to all users outside the country. However, in the coming months, the company says teams in China, Japan, Canada, Australia, the UK, France, and Germany will begin producing customized images tailored to their markets, under the coordination of Microsoft's Anne Singleton.

Bing accepts photo submissions from Microsoft employees, and the company has already run a few of those on the home page.

Microsoft doesn’t usually accept unsolicited photos from outsiders, but it’s planning to conduct a contest on Facebook in the coming weeks, letting the online community submit and vote on photos – vying for a featured spot as the background image on Bing.com.

But based on Microsoft’s Snow Leopard experience, anyone who enters the contest might to want to double-check to make sure their submission doesn’t deliver any unintended messages.

“We liked the image, we thought it was good,” Horstmanshof said, marveling at the logical leaps people made. “I really didn’t anticipate that it was going to be quite the story that it was.”

[Disclosure: Microsoft Bing is presenting sponsor of the upcoming TechFlash Summer BBQ and Ping-Pong Tournament.]