Microsoft Virtual Earth now has a new name (and it’s not Kumo or Kiev). First, a little background to ensure we’re all on the same page. As of yesterday….
Live Search Maps was our consumer maps offering. This is the web site you go to for maps, aerial photos, directions, searching for points of interest and creating collections of your own personal data to store in the cloud. Live Search Maps is now called Bing Maps. Bing! That’s right, you know you’re going to do it every time you see the name. Bing! I digress.
Microsoft Virtual Earth was our enterprise mapping platform. This was the set of APIs you would leverage to embed maps into your web site along with overlay data in the form of pushpins, polygons, polylines, raster overlays, etc. etc. Microsoft Virtual Earth is now called “Bing Maps for Enterprise.”
Now, the fun part. What does that mean for all the other properties?
MapPoint Web Service will remain MapPoint Web Service. Photosynth will remain Photosynth. Well, this is a lot of work to go through each one, so I took the liberty of interviewing one of our Corporate Vice Presidents in Search, Erik Jorgensen, to discuss this hot topic. Watch this video and all of your questions about the new Bing brand will be answered.
Click video to view. Double click to view full screen Be sure to visit the main Bing blog for more information.
In the coming weeks you’ll learn more about how we designed Bing to cut through internet clutter and deliver more relevant results to help people make better choices. In the meantime, visit http://www.decisionengine.com and follow Bing on Twitter (@Bing) for all the latest news.
My Twitter remains the same - @chrispendleton. I also set up a Facebook page for all you Bing Maps fans out there. My blog will also be moving soon and will be focusing on both Bing Maps and Bing Maps for Enterprise, so stay tuned for more information on that.
CP – Bing Maps Technical Evangelist….I need new business cards.
