Bing Community

Becoming an authority - how to and why you want to

Duane Forrester — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:00:00 GMT

Back in October we posted this idea and got great feedback from folks. Today we're posting a quick review video on the topic. It's 3 minutes from your day that we hope will help get you pointed on the right path to becoming a true authority and reaping the benefits.

Bing is for Doing: Wiz Khalifa’s Story

The Bing Team — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Propelled by his young bravado and hardcore yet charismatic execution of rhymes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania rap artist Wiz Khalifa’s star has taken flight over the past few years. In anticipation of Sunday’s hotly anticipated 54^th Grammy Awards, Bing is providing a sneak peek at our newest ad, which will premiere during the Grammy telecast on February 12th. Featuring double-Grammy nominee Wiz Khalifa, the video provides an intimate, insider look at Wiz and his creative process, while reinforcing Bing is for doing.

You’ll see the ad during E!’s “Live from the Red Carpet” Grammy pre-show, on American Idol, and extensively online including Vevo.com, which has exclusive coverage of all Grammy show performances, and Buzz Media sites. We’re also excited to work with Viggle, the new second screen application, to enable Viggle users to extend their Grammy’s experience. Beginning with the live Grammy telecast, Viggle users will be able to gain up to 100,000 extra points by interacting with a cool set of quizzes, polls, videos and other interactive features brought to life with the help of Bing. Also, make sure to follow @Bing on Twitter for the opportunity to win a $50 Live Nation^® Concert Cash^® Code on Sunday.

- Sean Carver, Bing

Bing Maps CRM System Scheduled Maintenance on February 10 Starting at 8pm PST

Bing Maps Blog — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:15:00 GMT

The Bing Maps CRM system is scheduled for maintenance on February 10, 2012, beginning at 8pm PST. The work is scheduled to be complete within 12 to 16 hours. During this time the Developer Portal (www.bingmapsportal.com) will be unavailable for tasks such as key creation, account management, reporting, and SDS via the Developer Portal. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Microsoft and IDV Solutions Present a Webcast on Visualizing Physical Security and Public Safety with Visual Command Center

Bing Maps Blog — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Join Microsoft Global Security and IDV Solutions for an informative presentation and demonstration of Visual Command Center - innovative software that is helping federal agencies and the armed forces protect people, property, and assets.

The Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, SPAWAR, Army Corps of Engineers, and other agencies and commands are using Microsoft and IDV Solutions technology for a variety physical security and public safety missions such as:

• Incident Response
• Executive/Personnel Protection
• Asset Tracking
• Disaster Recovery
• Emergency Management
• Interagency Collaboration
• Border Protection

Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 - 2:00 EST | Register Here

More About this Webcast

Security Experts from Microsoft Global Security

Security experts from Microsoft and IDV Solutions will be demonstrating how Microsoft Global Security empowers its security workers to respond quickly to incidents by consolidating security data in a solution built with IDV Solutions software. Microsoft Global Security is responsible for the safety and security of 700 offices and thousands of employees.

Visual Command Center

Visual Command Center helps agencies, public safety organizations, and others understand the threats that could impact people or assets by integrating real-time information from data feeds and multiple security systems within the context of location and time.

Visual Command Center works with existing security systems so that agencies and military commands can get the most out of current equipment and team. Feature rich, Visual Command Center gives security teams everything they need to visualize and interrogate the information that is most important to the team.

• Rapid Floor Plan Integration
• E-mail Alerts Based on Geography
• Security Data Pack
• Process Documentation Management
• Spatial and Temporal Querying
• Live Weather and Traffic Reports
• Built-in, Ready-to-Use Web Feeds
• Integrated, Mobile Access with Fetch!

Another Bing Maps Government Solution: Microsoft Single View Platform

Bing Maps Blog — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

In today’s hectic and digital world, workers are overloaded by information management. The Microsoft Single View Platform (SVP) helps decision makers take action quicker on information that is relevant and often time sensitive by simplifying complex data and information into an easy-to-use system for all types of government workers and roles. Using a broad suite of Microsoft products, this solution is easy to implement and cost-effective, and will fit nicely into the software investments many government agencies already license today.

With so much data having a location component, Microsoft Bing Maps adds the critical visualization layer to SVP resulting in increased situational awareness for employees and more informed decision making and reporting. With Single View Platform, workers can easily see the information that matters to them in a simple-to-consume visual way.

To learn more, read case studies, and watch demos, visit Microsoft Single View Platform.

Bing is for Doing: Theophilus London’s Story

The Bing Team — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Following his widely buzzed about performance at the Bing Bar at the Sundance Film Festival, Theophilus London and Bing are unveiling the next stage of their collaboration today. London, a songwriter, rapper, and designer has performed at several Bing- hosted events and we are currently sponsoring his upcoming album, a collection of remixes of Timez are Weird These Days tracks.

In the next phase of the Bing is for Doing campaign, Bing will be highlighting stories of musicians over the coming weeks – first up is Theophilus and how he is creating and inspiring. In this video, which will appear in different lengths online and in movie theaters, Theophilus shares why he is not an overnight sensation, how important individuality is to him, and why he wants to inspire people to be better.

- Sean Carver, Bing

Pop Music Maven Arjan Writes Joins #BingIt to Discuss the GRAMMYs

The Bing Team — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:13:00 GMT

Arjan Writes is the man behind the renowned www.ArjanWrites.com blog, which Forbes named “Best of Blog” for music in 2007, is an authority on emerging acts and cutting-edge new pop music. Arjan is also an official Community Blogger for GRAMMY.com, covering all major GRAMMY events throughout GRAMMY Week. With the GRAMMYs just around the corner we invited Arjan to share his GRAMMY predictions with you live via twitter.

This week, you have a chance to get Arjan’s inside perspective first hand. He will be our guest on this week’s #BingIt chat where he will share his GRAMMY predictions. Join us Wednesday, February 8th from 12-1 p.m. PT to tweet directly with Arjan and the #BingIt crew. To participate, follow @Bing and @arjanwrites and tweet out your questions and commentary with the hashtag #BingIt. As an added bonus, we’ll be giving away two $50 gift cards.

The 54^th annual GRAMMY Awards will air this upcoming Sunday, February 12 at 8 p.m. PT on CBS live from The Staples Center.

Need to catch up on your favorite acts ahead of the Grammy’s? Bing has you covered. Use Bing Entertainment to search nominees so you don’t miss a beat the night of the awards.

- The #BingIt Team

Kari Dilloo - @karidilloo
Ted Roduner - @roduner
Tanya Wang - @wangtanya

Webmaster Tools Markup Validation Tool

Duane Forrester — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:19:00 GMT

Earlier this week, folks using their Bing Webmaster Tools would have noticed a new tool slipped into the mix. On the "Crawl" tab, you can now find a link to the Markup Validation Tool. This tool is a great way to understand if the added code is actually going to be readable, as intended. While the markup code being inaccurate will not cause your page to render any differently in most cases, having the syntax incorrect can affect our ability to use the data as you intend. Now you can easily check URLs for valid markup code from inside your webmaster tools account.

The tool scans for the most common markup languages, and will display them if they are properly implemented:

When you enter a URL into the tool, the system will scan the URL and show the data we've found, when it is implemented correctly.

If you scan a page which does not have any markup installed, or where the markup is not installed correctly, you will see an error message.

If you are experiencing errors when using the tool to check your markup installation, please reference the links provided above to ensure you are using the code as intended within the parameters specified for each language.

Our Favorite Features

The Bing Team — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

This week we have been encouraging people to take another look at Bing. To help folks who may not have used us in a while find some of our favorite features, we’ve pulled together a quick list of some cool things you can do on Bing that you won’t find other places.

1) Bing Homepage: Daily Inspiration

The Bing homepage includes a new beautiful image daily, information hotspots embedded in the image, popular searches, and links to video, news, shopping, travel, images, entertainment and maps. In addition, the Bing homepage occasionally features rich HTML5-powered videos in place of the daily image, providing people with an even more immersive experience.

2) Bing Travel: Price Predictor

With our airfare price predictions, in once glance you can find out whether fares are rising or dropping and whether you should buy now or wait.

3) Bing Video: Smart Motion Preview

How many times have you clicked on a video thumbnail only to discover that it wasn’t quite what you were looking for? With Smart Motion Preview, you can hover over a video and immediately watch a preview without having to travel to the site.

4) Bing Music: Artists

Interested in a band or exploring new artists. Look no further. Bing pulls everything together in one place. From videos, albums, show schedules, biographies and even the ability to listen or purchase the song from Zune, Amazon MP3 or iTunes.

5) Bing Events: FanSnap

Thanks to our partnership with FanSnap, you can find and compare event tickets from leading tickets sites, check out the view from the seat and quickly find the best value in Bing. Even Super Bowl tickets!

6) Bing Local: Action Buttons

Bing provides a plethora of information about local businesses including action buttons to get stuff done faster. For example, a restaurant listing may include links to commonly used functions on that site such as menu or location. Search results also may offer quick links to customer reviews, menus, one-click directions and an interior panorama or Streetside view of the location, if available.

7) Bing Maps: Mall Maps

Our Shopping Mall Maps allow you to view individual stores, layout, parking, ATMs and entrances, as well as many other mall services for nearly 700 malls across the US, France, Germany and the UK — all within Bing Maps.

8) Bing Shopping: Deals

Deals available at Bing.com/deals, visually organizes nearly 300,000 of the hottest deals from across the Web along with daily deals in 12 cities, in one convenient location.

9) Bing Maps: Airport Maps

Airport Maps give you everything you need to navigate your travels, including information on parking garages, ticket counter locations, terminals and gates, baggage claims, currency exchange, and more. The maps also feature a sortable directory of airlines, cafes and restaurants. Currently, there are airport maps for more than 50 airports, covering most of the medium- and large-hub airports in the United States.

10) Bing Everywhere: Bing on Xbox, Bing for Mobile and Bing for iPad

We make Bing available in convenient and intuitive ways that take advantage of the capabilities across a breadth of devices. You can see this today with features like: voice search on Bing for Xbox, implicit search such as Local Scout on Windows Phone, the ability to search using your phone’s camera with Bing Vision and touch/contextual search through the Lasso feature on the Bing for iPad app.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

- The Bing Team

Super Imagery for Super Bowl 2012!

Bing Maps Blog — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

If you love football (or great commercials…or parties with lots of snacks), you’re probably looking forward to Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis, Indiana happening this Sunday. If you’re taking a trip to Indiana to see the big game in person, or if you’re planning to experience it all from the comfort of your couch, let Bing Maps be your insider’s guide. Our incredible aerial imagery and Bird’s Eye perspective allow you to enjoy unique, beautiful, and interactive pictures of Lucas Oil Stadium and all the best sights and attractions that make Indianapolis “the crossroads of America!” Check it out!

The Main Event

On February 5, all eyes will be on Lucas Oil Stadium, where ticketholders will be soaking in the exciting atmosphere during the game. The stadium, which opened in 2008, boasts the largest retractable roof in the NFL, covers 1.8 million square feet, and was named the 2009 Sports Facility of the Year by Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal. You can read more about the stadium here.

Also, check out these before and after aerial images of the construction process. Big improvement, don’t you think?

January 27 – February 5, visitors can enjoy the NFL Experience—an interactive theme park all about pro football—hosted at the Indiana Convention Center. Between the NFL Experience and Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Georgia Street will be transformed into Super Bowl Village (a.k.a. “The Epicenter of Awesome”). These three blocks will be packed with interactive games, restaurants, bars, concerts, live attractions, and four ziplines overhead! Learn more at www.indianapolissuperbowl.com.

Georgia Street, Bird's Eye perspective

New in Town?

Bing Maps offers helpful tools and information for visitors to Indianapolis, and also for those who simply want to know more about the city.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art holds a collection of over 50,000 pieces of art spanning 5,000 years and representing the whole world.

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Aerial view

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Bird's Eye perspective

It sits adjacent to the breathtaking 100 Acres Art and Nature Park. Best of all, the museum is FREE!

For those more interested in fashion than football, check out the Material World Exhibit, featuring “the extravagant ornamentation of textiles and personal adornment from cultures around the world, highlighting the significance of textiles in displaying wealth, status, and power.” This exhibit is open through Sunday, February 5.

Perhaps the city’s most infamous attraction, don’t miss the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indy 500. This incredible facility is offering special hours of operation during Super Bowl XLVI for tours, boasting one of the most highly visible collections in the world devoted to automobiles and auto racing. More information is available here. Enjoy several tour options of the famous 2.5 mile oval in person, or check out this image:

Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Bird's Eye perspective

Traveling with kids? The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is a must-see. Come explore all five floors of the largest Children’s Museum in the WORLD! Yes…the whole world. Exhibits cover science, culture, history, and the arts…and there are some frighteningly realistic dinosaurs that look like they’re roaming the grounds, looking for fun!

Children's Museum, Aerial view

Children's Museum, Bird's Eye view

If you haven’t had enough museums, you’re in luck…there are MORE! Three of Indiana’s best are all lined up in a row, for your viewing pleasure. In one visit (or click of the mouse, for those following along at home!), you can see the Indiana State Museum, the NCAA Hall of Champions, and the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art.

Three Museums, Bird's Eye

For many of you, a day of shopping will ALWAYS sound more fun than a day of football. The Cultural Trail of Indianapolis is a walking/biking trails that connects all five of the downtown Cultural Districts in the city, including Fountain Square, Indiana Avenue, Mass Avenue, The Canal and White River State Park, and the Wholesale District. Each district offers fun shops, great restaurants, and lovely galleries to explore.

Find more info here: http://www.indyculturaltrail.org/

The Cultural Trail, Bird's Eye view

The Canal Walk, Bird's Eye

For those history buffs, check out the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument.

This towering structure is hard to miss, and is situated very close to Super Bowl Village. At 284 feet tall, the monument stands in memory of the thousands of Indianapolis residents who lost their lives in the Civil War. Visitors can see the city from the glass-enclosed observatory up top, or check out the historical displays about the Civil War in the basement.

If you want to brave the winter cold, the White River State Park and Indianapolis Zoo are excellent destinations. Located downtown, White River was one of the first state parks in Indiana. Check out the zoo, three museums, and an IMAX theater, all with a great view of the city skyline.

White River State Park from the air

Finally, if you’re wandering the city and looking for a quick and delicious snack, drop in at the Indianapolis City Market. This has been Indianapolis’ go-to place for fresh produce, specialty foods, delicious baked goods, and fine meats and cheeses from around the world since 1886. It’s also a great spot to relax and enjoy the sights, smells, and lively atmosphere of the city.

Indianapolis City Market, Streetside view

Need a map? We love maps…so here’s a helpful collection of maps to help you navigate all the local events: Know Before You Go.

We hope you’ll enjoy touring the city (live, or virtually) as much as we have. Continue using Bing Maps for all your travel needs, Super Bowl related or otherwise!

Bing Maps Reporting Tips

Bing Maps Blog — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:00:00 GMT

By Ricky Brundritt, EMEA Bing Maps Technology Solution Professional

In addition to Bing Maps great API’s, there are some helpful reporting tools available to anyone who has a Bing Maps account: Developer or Enterprise. These help you get insight as to how people are using your map applications, and to also keep track of your Bing Maps usage so that it does not exceed your allowed transactions. For example, according to the Bing Maps Terms of Use, Limited Commercial use accounts are allowed 500,000 transactions and 125,000 sessions within a 12-month period.

This post will go through and highlight many useful tips to help you make the most out your Bing Maps sessions and transactions. This post is in two sections. The first section is about the reporting tools available in the Bing Maps portal and the second is focused on development tips to get the most out of the API. This blog post will assume that you have implemented Bing Maps Keys in your application. If you are using Bing Maps Tokens, these will be retired on March 30^th, 2012. Documentation on how to migrate to Bing Maps Keys is here.

Before I move forward, there are a couple of definitions you should know.

Bing Maps Session: A Bing Maps session occurs when one of the map controls is loaded. Any transactions occurred against the Bing Maps services, while within a session is non-billable. Note this requires the application to properly use Bing Maps Keys.
Bing Maps Transaction: A Bing Maps transaction occurs any time a service request is made. For example, some of the more common services used that incur transactions are: Bing Maps Geocoding, Routing, and Imagery service, Bing Spatial Data Service Query .
Bing Maps Key: A Bing Maps Key is a unique string that is used to authenticate a user’s Bing Maps application or service request. This is the primary method used for tracking usage of the Bing Maps API’s.

Complete documentation explaining all the different ways sessions and transactions are incurred can be found here.

Bing Maps Portal Reports

The Bing Maps reporting tools can be found in the Bing Maps portal. To find the reports follow these steps:

1. Sign into the Bing Maps portal (https://www.bingmapsportal.com/) using your Windows Live Id for your account.

2. Once signed in click on the “View my Bing Maps API usage” link in the left side panel.

3. You will now see a list of 5 different report options. Choose the one that interests you.

a. Usage Report – A report of all transactions incurred using Bing Maps keys

b. Usage Report by Category – A breakdown of all transactions broken up by the different usage categories (i.e. AjaxSession, RESTRoutes). This is a great way to see how users are using Bing Maps in your application.

c. Usage Report by Bing Maps Keys – Breaks down the transaction by Bing Maps keys. This is useful if you have multiple applications each using a different Bing Maps key.

d. Legacy (MWS + Token) Usage Report – This is an older report type that let people who have implemented Bing Maps tokens or who used to use MapPoint Web Services view their historical transactions.

e. Legacy (MWS + Token) Usage Report by Category - This is a break down of the historical transactions incurred by MapPoint and Bing Maps token users.

If you were to select Usage Report by Category, you would see a page open that looks like this:

All reports have date range filters which can be used to view up to one year’s worth of data. You can also filter the first two reports by Bing Maps key to further break down the data. In addition you can export the reports to several file formats:

XML file with report data
CSV (comma delimited)
Acrobat (PDF) file
MHTML (web archive)
Excel
TIFF file
Word

Development Tips

Many of the Bing Maps API’s have a method for getting the credentials from the map after you have loaded it using a valid Bing Maps key. One often overlooked feature is that, by getting the credentials from the map, you do not get back your original Bing Maps key. Instead, you get a special session key which you can use as a Bing Maps key to make requests to the Bing Maps services. By doing this, all transactions occurred by this session key will be non-billable. Many developers overlook this feature and opt to simply use their original Bing Maps key, not knowing that they are actually incurring more billable transactions than they need to. Here are some examples of how to properly use a session key.

Bing Maps V7 AJAX API

function ClickGeocode()

{

map.getCredentials(MakeBingMapsRESTRequest);

}

function MakeBingMapsRESTRequest(sessionKey)

{

//Generate a request URL for the Bing Maps REST services.

//Use the session key in the request as the Bing Maps key

}

Full working sample can be found here.

Bing Maps Silverlight, WPF, WP7, and WinForm API’s

Map.CredentialsProvider.GetCredentials((c) =>

{

string sessionKey = c.ApplicationId;

//Generate a request URL for the Bing Maps REST services.

//Use the session key in the request as the Bing Maps key

});

Full working samples can be found here.

Throttled Events for Dynamically Loading Data

Some developers like to update the data on the map as it moves. This is often achieved by using a view change end map event. This can be useful for presenting new data to the user without them needing to do a new search. However there are a few tricks you can implement to reduce the number of requests made by your application. The first trick, if using the Bing Maps V7 API, is to use a throttled event. This will help reduce the number of events that are fired if the user is constantly panning and zooming the map. Here is an example of how to create a throttled event in Bing Maps V7 that ensures that 250ms has passed since the map has stopped moving.

Microsoft.Maps.Events.addThrottledHandler(map, 'viewchangeend', eventHandlerFunction, 250);

By reducing the number of requests made to the Bing Maps services, you greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth required by your application which will in turn increase performance. This will be most notable on web and mobile applications. You can find a good working example of this type of solution here.

Learn More

To learn more about the Bing Maps Account Center and reporting capabilities, attend a webcast on March 15. Register here.

Lifelens to Bring Malaria Treatment to the Masses with Windows Phone and Bing Maps

The Bing Team — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:01:00 GMT

On Friday, four teams from around the world were informed that they had won a $75,000 grant to propel their Imagine Cup ideas and prototypes to the next level. One of the winners was Lifelens a distributed team that developed an innovative and cost effective way to identify malaria in patients living in remote and underserved areas.

Lifelens is a point-of-care tool to diagnose malaria using an augmented Windows Phone 7 application. A blood sample is applied to a slide with a dye that only malaria parasites can absorb. Using a special lens with 350x magnification, the Windows Phone takes an image of that slide to get a cellular-level view of the blood cells. The LifeLens technology then detects which cells are infected with malaria. The application includes GPS to geotag the location of each cellular analysis, which can then be displayed on Bing Maps.

Yesterday, Tristan Gibeau stopped by our offices to talk with Stefan Weitz about the project, what it was like winning the grant and how the team used Bing Maps. You can check out the conversation as well an overview of LifeLens in the team’s own words below:

- Ted Roduner, Bing

Let the Games Begin: Your Guide to Awards Season Fun

The Bing Team — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Everybody loves a good rivalry.

Whether it’s celebrities vying for an Oscar, artists competing for a Grammy, or presidential hopefuls stumping for the nomination, we all enjoy a good competition. That said, some races are more entertaining than others. According to a recent survey we conducted, nearly 70% of people said they are equally or more invested in the Grammys and Oscars than the race for the US presidency.

With that in mind, I’ve pulled together some tips to help you bone up on your favorite nominated celebrity, movie or album and make this year’s hottest races even more fun to watch:

Plan a few fun nights. The best ways to learn about nominated movies and music can also be the most fun. Check out the lists of nominees and plan a few movie nights or listening parties with your friends to experience the hottest films and albums for yourself. Find movie times or concert listings near you with Bing Entertainment. Take note of your favorites and be ready to pick the winners on the big night based on first-hand knowledge.
Research what’s already won – and place your bets. By the time the Academy Awards roll around, Hollywood has already hosted several other awards shows, including the Critics’ Choice Awards, SAG Awards and Golden Globes. Use Bing Entertainment to search nominees and see who’s already won – they could win again. Make the night even more exciting by hosting a party or organizing an office bracket to bet on winners.

Catch up on latest gossip. Hollywood’s hottest couples often use awards shows as a fun date night out on the town, while new couples take advantage of the red carpet to step out together for the first time. Unplanned run-ins and new or unexpected couplings are always hot on the Hollywood radar. Bing Entertainment’s Celebrity Connections feature lets you see who’s connected to who, what stars are newly coupled or single, or who might have the most outrageous red carpet arrival this season.

Get inspired by red carpet glamour. Look to the best dressed stars for fashion inspiration and brighten up the dreary winter by making red carpet trends part of your wardrobe.
Substance over style. Those people more politically inclined can keep up with the hottest buzz in the 2012 presidential race. Bing News surfaces up-to-the-minute news coverage, including trending tweets to highlight what’s happening, so you can be constantly informed and ready for any race that interests you this year.

Whatever race interests you, researching in advance makes the experience more enjoyable. By spending a little time – and making it fun – you can impress your friends by mastering red carpet fashion trends, awards nominees or celebrity gossip.

May the best person win!

- Karin Muskopf, Bing

Bing Rewards December Winners and Our Latest Sweepstakes

The Bing Team — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

We are pleased to announce the winners, pending official confirmation, of the three Bing Rewards sweepstakes that ended on January 11. Our new sweeps have begun and end on January 31. Keep reading for details on the great prizes we’re offering and how to enter, but first congratulations to our latest winners.

John A. of Chalfont, Pennsylvania was drawn as the grand prize winner of the Wintacular Weekend Trip. Have fun picking who to take and where to go on your trip for two with two nights' accommodation anywhere in the continental U.S.
Sandi V. of Ankeny, Iowa was picked in the Xbox 360 Pole Position Prize Pack sweepstakes. Enjoy your Kinect for Xbox 360 bundle, Forza Motorsport 4, a Forza Motorsport 4 Season Pass and a special edition Forza Motorsport 4 gaming chair from Playseat America.
There were 100 winners in our 1K Credit Blizzard sweepstakes, too numerous to list here. However, we’re pleased to share that they represent 35 out of the 50 states, including 16 winners in California and eight each from Texas and Florida. We look forward to seeing how they redeem the 1,000 Bing Rewards credits they won in our new redemption center.

Our new sweepstakes* have kicked off and will run through January 31, 2011 at 11.59 a.m. ET. This month’s prizes include:

Orlando Weekend Getaway. Orlando is one of the coolest cities in Florida. Add a must-see destination like Universal Studios Park and you've got yourself one stellar weekend. Win a two-night trip for two including airfare, a stay at the Portofino Resort and Spa, 2 two-day Universal Studios Park passes-and $100 to drop on whatever you'd like.
Xbox Prize Pack & Movie a Year of Movie Nights. Take a Kinect for Xbox 360 bundle, toss in a year's worth of free movie nights (52 one-night DVD rentals)– then add a yearlong Xbox LIVE gold subscription to the mix.
$50 Tango Card - 30 Winners. 30 lucky winners will skip off into special treat land when they win Tango Cards loaded with $50. Convert your Tango Card effortlessly into GAP, Target, REI or Nike cards (just to name a few), or even into cold hard cash.

www.discoverbing.com/rewards/web and please follow the instructions to create a Bing Rewards account or simply log into your existing Bing Rewards account and enter by following the directions found at the links above. Join Bing Rewards before January 31 to automatically be entered into the Orlando Weekend Getaway and Xbox Prize Pack & Movie Rentals for a Year sweepstakes. You can find the sweepstakes Official Rules here. Good luck!

Have an idea for a Bing Rewards sweepstake prize you’d like to see in the future? We want to hear it. Just send us a note on Twitter or leave us a comment below.

Alex Danskin

Product Marketing Manager, Bing

* No purchase necessary. Open only to Legal residents of the 50 US +D.C. 13 +.

Four New Bing Maps V7 Modules

Bing Maps Blog — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

By Ricky Brundritt, EMEA Bing Maps Technology Solution Professional

In September of 2011 we started the Bing Maps v7 Module CodePlex Project. The purpose of this project is to create a single place where developers can find and share useful modules that expand the functionality of the Bing Maps V7 API. Currently, there have been 10 modules submitted to the project. With a number of new modules in development, it’s safe to say that this project is definitely worth looking into. Today I would like to highlight the four newest modules added to this project.

Point Based Clustering Module

Download here

I created this module based on feedback received around the Client Side Clustering Module that I created some time ago. The older client side clustering module uses a grid based algorithm which is fast, but requires re-clustering the data every time the map moved. This allows for 5000+ pushpins to be clustered in a fraction of a second but often results in pushpins jumping around the map as you pan. The point based algorithm prevents pushpins from overlapping and jumping around by only clustering the data when the zoom level changes. Additionally this module keeps track of clustered information for each zoom level, making the algorithm faster the more you use it. This improved UI experience does affect performance and as such this algorithm is recommended for 2000 or less pushpins. Interested in reading more about how this algorithm was created? Check out this blog post.

GPX Parser

Download here

I created this module due to a number of requests I had received for such a module. This module allows you to easily pass in a URL to a GPX file and have it parsed into an EntityCollection which you can then render on Bing Maps. GPX is a type of XML file that is commonly used by GPS devices. It can be used to describe waypoints, tracks, and routes. Majority of the XML tags for V1 and V1.1 of the GPX schema are supported and all data is stored in a Metadata property, which is added to each entity.

Route Optimization - RouteSavvy Module

Download here

This module was created by OnTerra Systems, a Bing Maps Partner.

In today’s economy, it is more important than ever that companies optimize and manage their supply chains more efficiently. Given today’s fuel costs, product delivery with high quality of service and short delay times is paramount. Distribution accounts for a large proportion of the overall operational costs of a producer. Hence, effective and efficient management of transportation and distribution of goods are becoming increasingly important.

One of the key problems in this process is the optimization of delivery routes to customers. This problem is known as the “Travelling Salesman Problem” (TSP). RouteSavvy is a web service that helps solve this problem.

RouteSavvy is a simple but powerful tool that can take anywhere from 3 or 4 locations to hundreds of locations. It reorders them based on whether you'd like to visit them in a "round-trip" OR as a one-way trip, with the last stop chosen either by you or by the software (whichever is preferred).

Web developers can now easily integrate the RouteSavvy API into their web application by adding the RouteSavvy Map Module. The map module uses Ajax to call the RouteSavvy web service to optimize a given set of locations.

Here is a screen shot of a set random location optimized for a round trip:

Mini-Map Module

Download here

This module was created by OnTerra Systems, a Bing Maps Partner.

The Bing Maps Ajax v7 control doesn’t include support for adding a Mini-Map. The Mini-Map module adds a small map at the right corner of the parent map that’s collapsible and shows the extents covered by the current map. This module adds a mini map at the top right corner of the screen. Mini-map view helps to give a zoomed out overview of your location. Here is a screen shot of the implemented Mini-Map module:

I hope you find these new modules useful!

Moving content? Think 301, not rel=canonical

Duane Forrester — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:31:00 GMT

Whether you've decided to move your website to a new domain or you're moving content within a current website, it's important to know how to protect the trust value your current content has with the engines. Over time, links get built, content ages and acquires trust. You don't want to walk away from that if you can help it. Why start over when most of that value can be transferred to the content's new location?

The solution to your problem is the 301 redirect. This redirect is referred to as the "permanent" redirect. Its cousin, the 302 redirect, is the "temporary" redirect. Basically the 301 tells us to please follow the link to find the new home for the content. The 302 on the other hand, tells us the content has moved temporarily, but will return to its original location. Since, in this example, we know you've moved the content permanently, the 301 is the redirect you should use. We've covered this in more detail in a past post.

One big questions folks often have at this point is how much of the value is passed to the new URL. A valid question, and one with a simple answer. Most of the value is passed.

We cannot pass all of the value because, like it or not, that new URL is, well, ...new. We do still need to see many of the usual signals firing to help us close the gap back to the original, full trust value for the content. So, as you watch your stats, you will see a drop in the traffic graph as you work through a transition period. There's no hard and fast rule on how long this transition period lasts, but it usually measured in months or less.

This past week at a conference someone had a question and asked if they could use a rel=canonical in place of a 301. They argued that since the rel=canonical passes value similarly to a 301, it should do the trick.

The answer to the question is...no. You should not use a rel=canonical in place of a 301 redirect. The rel=canonical is designed to help manage duplicate URL issues. It is not a true 301 signal to the engines, though it can pass value similar to the way a 301 does. Implementing a 301 redirect is tough to mess up. It either works or it does not, and when it does, it passes value. We recently encountered a website that had so botched implementing its rel=canonicals that it essentially would lead to all of their pages, save one, being stripped of value and de-indexed over time.

Luckily they've found and fixed the issue, but the fact remains. If you need to move content, the 301 is your friend.

Looking Back at Sundance 2012

The Bing Team — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:05:00 GMT

As things wrap up in Park City this week, we wanted to thank everyone who stopped by the Bing Bar on main street. We played host to a group of amazing artists, independent filmmakers and athletes who inspire us (and hopefully you.)

We’ve captured some of our favorite interviews and performances below. If you’d like to relive any of these moments, you can find all the interviews at www.bingsundance.com and archived performances from the likes of Fitz and The Tantrums, WIM and Cobra Starship as well as access to insightful talks from figures like pro snowboarder turned traumatic brain injury advocate Kevin Pearce at www.facebook.com/bing (Livestream tab.)

See you next year

- The Bing Team

New Bing Maps Features Help You Feel Spatial…<3

Chris Pendleton — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:07:25 GMT

Coming back after the holiday season with a lot of energy, the Bing Maps team kicked off 2012 with releases of a new routing engine and the WPF control. Today--only 2 weeks later--we are now announcing several new features in the Bing Spatial Data Services and the Bing Maps Account Center. New features include a data source for traffic incidents, the ability to find points of interest (POI) along a route, wildcard-searches in your POI, incremental updates of POI data sources, improved reporting and more. Happy New Year! Are you feeling the love?

The Bing Spatial Data Services provide a REST interface that allows you to geocode or reverse-geocode your own POI data sources in batch-mode, manage these data sources and query your own or some public POI data sources that Bing Maps provides in a spatial context.

In this release, we added the following features:

Incremental Upload - Your own data sources now support incremental updates by setting the parameter ‘loadOperation’ in the Data Source Management API to ‘incremental’. So, once you’ve uploaded a data source of X number of locations into the Spatial Data Service, if you just want to add a few records you can just send those few records. We’ll handle the add and update functions for you!
Wildcard Searches - New Query Options support wildcard searches through filter criteria. Let’s say you want to query your data source to find the nearest locations around a point AND you want to filter the results based on the beginning or end of a keyword. For example, let’s say you have a “Store Manager” field in your data source. You can look for said manager by last name, “%Smith” or first name “John%” so you get all the Smiths or Johns within a region.
Traffic Incidents - Traffic Incidents for North America are now available as a public POI data source and can be accessed through the Query API. Now the traffic incidents you see on Bing Maps are available to you in your applications via a spatial query.
Find Near Route - The Bing Spatial Data Service supports now an additional spatialFilter which allows you to search for POI along a route. This is a game changer. Let’s say you’re a coffee company and you want to empower your users to have the ability find all your locations along their drive from, say Seattle to San Francisco…now you can! The Find Near Route Feature allows you to spatially query the points you’ve uploaded into SDS within a 1 mile buffer of your route.

http:// spatial.virtualearth.net /REST/v1/data/
439698230d90496596083f3fe7aafeb2/
TrafficIncidents/
TrafficIncident
?key=[YOUR_BING_MAPS_KEY]
&$format=json
&jsonp=callbackFindTrafficIncidentsNearRoute
&spatialFilter=nearRoute('47.678558349609375,-122.13098907470703',
'47.60356140136719,-122.32943725585937')

You will find a complete sample using the Bing Maps AJAX Control version 7 for visualization, the DirectionsManager class for driving directions, the TrafficLayer class for traffic-flow information and the Bing Spatial Data Services for traffic-incident information along a route here. Alternate versions of the SDK are available in PDF and .chm format, as well.

Note: Neither the Wildcard-search nor the spatial-filter ‘nearRoute’ are supported with the public data sources NAVTEQNA and NAVTEQEU.

The Bing Maps Account Center is the portal through which you can find information for development with Bing Maps, and also manage your account. It contains links to interactive and traditional SDKs, a facility to generate Bing Maps Keys, a web user interface to manage your own POI data sources and a reporting service through which you can retrieve statistics about your Bing Maps usage.

In this latest release we added the following features.

Additional data validation has been introduced for the upload of your own POI data sources.
Before it was already possible to add and edit records in a data source that you uploaded through the portal. You can now also download and delete data sources.
Image capturing adds now additional security during the generation of Bing Maps Keys.
Additional reports have been added to provide more details on the use of specific Bing Maps Keys.

We certainly hope you’re feeling special (and spatial!). We’re investing quite a bit of energy into Bing Maps and hope to see some killer apps. Happy Coding!!!

Johannes Kebeck & CP

Bing Maps Token Service Reminder: Upgrade to Keys Today!

Bing Maps Blog — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

For our current Bing Maps Platform customers using the Bing Maps Token Service, we want to remind you that this service will be retired on March 30, 2012. Please be sure to upgrade any of your applications that are using the Bing Maps Token Service to Bing Maps Keys before this date to ensure that your access to the Bing Maps Platform is not interrupted.

What Bing Maps Platform API’s does this upgrade apply to?

This upgrade only applies to the following Bing Maps Platform API’s:

Bing Maps AJAX Control v6.3 (and earlier versions)
Bing Maps SOAP Services
Bing Maps Silverlight Control

What are the benefits of using Bing Maps Keys instead of the Bing Maps Token Service?

Improved performance in accessing the Bing Maps Platform (i.e. the elimination of the requirement to call the Token Service prior to calling the Bing Maps API’s).
Unlike Bing Maps Tokens, Bing Maps Keys do not expire.
Enhanced management and reporting of your Bing Maps Platform usage (i.e. you can assign a unique Bing Maps Key to each of your applications to separately track the Bing Maps usage for each of your applications).

How can you tell if you are currently using the Bing Maps Token Service?

If your Bing Maps application is calling or referencing any of the following Bing Maps Platform URL’s (HTTP or HTTPS) you are very likely using the Bing Maps Token Service:
You can view the Legacy (MWS + Token) Usage Report by Category report in the View My Bing Maps API Usage section of the Bing Maps Account Center or view the Transaction Usage by Category report in the View Usage section of the Bing Maps Customer Services Site (the legacy Bing Maps Platform customer portal). If you see recent usage under those reports of the Bing Maps API types listed below then you are using the Bing Maps Token Service.
- LoadStandardMap
- CalculateRoute
- Geocode
- ReverseGeocode
- WS:CalculateRoute
- WS:CalculateRoutesFromMajorRoads
- WS:FindEntity
- WS:Geocode
- WS:GetImageryMetadata
- WS:GetMapUri
- WS:ReverseGeocode
- WS:Search

How do you get started with upgrading from the Bing Maps Token Service to Bing Maps Keys?

To get started, please follow the MSDN article, Migrating from Tokens to Keys, which explains how to obtain a Bing Maps Key, and provides guidance on upgrading your applications to Bing Maps Keys for applications using the Bing Maps AJAX Control, the Bing Maps Silverlight Control, or Bing Maps SOAP services.

Happy upgrading!

Bing at Sundance: See What’s Happening at Sundance 2012

The Bing Team — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:20:00 GMT

Sundance 2012 is in full tilt at the Bing Bar. From amazing live performances from the likes of Drake, Jason Mraz, Grouplove and Cobra Starship to candid interviews with stars like Aziz Ansari, Kristen Bell, Paul Simon, Neil Young and Quincy Jones, we have captured all the action.

Check out a few videos below, visit www.bingsundance.com for all of the interviews and check out www.facebook.com/bing for livestreams of events as they happen.

- The Bing Team

Bing at Sundance: Wiz Khalifa, Jesse Williams and More Rock the Bing Bar

The Bing Team — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

The snow is falling and the stars are out in Park City.

Ross Mathews has been busy catching the actors and musicians as they make their way through the Bing Bar. Check out some of the interviews below, head to www.bingsundance.com for all of the coverage and watch the livestreams of today’s events on www.facebook.com/bing.

- The Bing Team

Come meet Bing at SMX West and SES NY

Duane Forrester — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:28:00 GMT

It's conference season again, and we're looking forward to see folks at the shows again this year!

If you're planning to attend either the SMX West event, or the SES NY event, here are discount codes for each event.

SMX West : SMX10Bing will snag you a 10% discount

SES NY : 20Bing will snag you 20% off

If you want to hear what we have to say, we encourage you to join us at the following sessions.

SMX West - booth #406

Feb. 28 - 9AM - 10:15AM

Getting Personal, Part 1: How Google & Bing Personalize With Social Connections (#smx #11B)

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land (@dannysullivan)
Q&A Moderator: Michelle Robbins, Director of Technology, Third Door Media, Inc. (@MichelleRobbins)
Speakers: Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager, Bing (@DuaneForrester)

Feb. 28 - 10:45AM - 12:00PM

Getting Personal, Part 2: How Google & Bing Personalize With Search History & Geography (#smx #12B)

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land (@dannysullivan)
Q&A Moderator: Michelle Robbins, Director of Technology, Third Door Media, Inc. (@MichelleRobbins)
Speakers: Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager, Bing (@DuaneForrester); Jack Menzel, Product Management Director, Search, Google (@jackm)

March 1 - 2:30PM - 3:30PM

Ask The Search Engines – Open Q&A Forum (#smx #34A)

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land (@dannysullivan)
Q&A Moderator: Ryan Jones, Sr. SEO Strategist, Team Detroit (@ryanjones)
Speakers: Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager, Bing (@DuaneForrester); Tiffany Oberoi, Software Engineer, Google (@tiffanyoberoi)

SES NY - booth #1106

Same as last year we're looking to hear from you. Bring your questions, concerns and input. We'll be taking notes, answering questions and trying our best to make sure we hear your message.

Swing by the booth on the expo floor anytime. ...and keep your eyes open to this blog post. We'll update the speaking engagements as we finalize them.

Partner Webcast Now Available: Add Bing Maps to Your Line of Business Applications

Bing Maps Blog — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Watch this on-demand webcast to understand the partner opportunity for Bing Maps and how to qualify for partner benefits. You’ll learn how easy it is to add Bing Maps as a data presentation layer for spatial insight in your Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, and Windows Azure solutions. Deploying Bing Maps as part of your innovative solutions can help you attract new customers and expand revenue.

Note: Must belong to the MS Partner Network to access the webcast. Not a partner? Enroll today--it's free and only takes a few minutes!

Bing is for Doing: Kevin Pearce’s Story

The Bing Team — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:00:00 GMT

This weekend, Bing will be premiering a new campaign featuring winter sports athletes doing amazing things. The campaign will launch with American snowboarder, Kevin Pearce, who was on the path to the 2010 Olympics before a tragic snowboarding accident left him with a traumatic brain injury. Pearce, now an aspiring sports commentator and an advocate for both the National Down Syndrome Society and the prevention of Traumatic Brain Injuries, just returned to the slopes this month. Bing has documented his inspiring story and an advertisement featuring his story will premiere during the NFC Championship game on Sunday and air during the X Games coverage on ESPN. Kevin’s determination and drive to overcome his accident through vigorous rehabilitation and training inspires us at Bing to “do” more.

Today, we’re pleased to preview Kevin’s inspiring story and how he embodies the spirit of doing.

Just over two years from the day of the accident, Kevin is returning to Park City as part of Bing’s Speaker Series at the Sundance Film Festival. Moderated by Sal Masekala, Kevin will join Dr. Holly Ledyard, the doctor who helped him recover to tell his story and raise awareness for traumatic brain injury prevention. You can watch a live-stream of the conversation at www.facebook.com/bing at 1 p.m. PT on Sunday, the 22^nd.

Joining Kevin in this campaign are other notable winter sports athlete: Bobby Brown – a freeskier specializing in slopestyle and big air competitions who defines the current state of tricks in skiing, Kaitlyn Farrington – one of the world’s best half-pipe snowboarders who won gold at the Winter X Games in Europe, and Gretchen Bleiler – one of the world’s top snowboarders and silver medalist at the 2006 Oylmpics in the half-pipe. Their stories will be shared on TV, online and via social media campaigns.

These videos are part of a new campaign for Bing, highlighting people doing interesting things. Bing has traditionally highlighted the decisions people make and now, with this new campaign, Bing will illustrate how decisions enable people to go beyond searching to doing.

These videos are part of a new campaign for Bing, highlighting people doing interesting things. Because Bing is for people who do; for people like you who are always doing more and don’t have time to sit still. So whether you’re on your PC or on your phone, Bing has features designed not just to connect you to the information you are looking for, but also to help you get things done right on Bing.com. From making dinner reservations to sharing a link with one of your Facebook friends, it can all happen within Bing. With Bing, you simply get results you can trust that will get you quickly from searching to doing. Bing is for doing.

What do you want to do?

- Lisa Gurry, Director Bing

Love Aerial Imagery? Experience it on your PC!

Bing Maps Blog — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:00:00 GMT

Some of the best imagery from the Bing Maps Global Ortho Project is collected into Windows 7 Desktop Themes. These themes change your PC desktop experience as the images rotate through on a regular basis so you never know which part of the world you’ll be looking at next! The United States version is the most content-rich Windows 7 Desktop Theme with nearly 200 images from all parts of the Continental United States, and has had almost a million downloads. The European version just launched last month and contains photos from 10 different countries in Western Europe. Once downloaded, both of these themes are updated through RSS feeds as new imagery is available. For a deeper dive on these themes, check out this post . What are you waiting for? Go download one today!

Bing Maps Aerial Imagery – United States
Windows 7 desktop theme
Click here to Download
Click here for Details

Bing Maps Aerial Imagery – Europe
Windows 7 desktop theme
Click here to Download
Click here for Details