Mark Brown's Web Platform Blog

So the other day I was following an email thread on a discussion forum for Virtual Earth internally here at Microsoft and someone says, "if only VE clients had “inertia” like Google Earth..." and someone writes back. "Inertia is there, it's just turned...

Just got into my hotel room at Where 2.0 here in Burlingame, CA at the SFO Airport Marriott. Got a nice view of the bay and the SFO runway right on the bay. I requested a bay side room not just because it's nicer to look out over water than a warehouse...

Microsoft holds an event every year called Location Summit. It's a two day event where we invite scientists and others who are deep into the mapping technologies to come and share in the research they are doing. I got looped into this thing to cover for...

One of the uses of Virtual Earth that really surprised me at first was using Virtual Earth in the Media and Entertainment industry. When I was at NAB a month ago I saw quite a few companies actively showing their wares with Virtual Earth. A few of these...

Well not really, at least not as an OOBE, but when you get smart people figuring out cool ways of using Virtual Earth it CAN! Saw an article by Doug Newcomb on Wired.com today about a site called, njection.com created by Shannon Atkinson who created an...

One of the things I often hear from developers using Virtual Earth is "Why can't I drag stuff around on the maps?". Great question! I know some of my friends on the Virtual Earth team have posted some articles on this in the past but I wanted to show...

A surprising article yesterday on Computer World . Money quote: “Microsoft scored high in user satisfaction for its Web services, software development kits, documentation and forums. In the Web services category, Microsoft came in on top this year after...

I don't know if I have mentioned this before but Marc Schweigert from our Developer and Platform Evangelism team is AWESOME. Yesterday he posted a blog entry about how he took the entire Virtual Earth Interactive SDK and rewrote it as a solution inside...

It's that time of year again when Microsoft goes looking for MVP's (Most Valuable Professional) . I'm actually working on growing the number of Virtual Earth MVP's this year. Right now there are just a handful of them world wide including these guys:...

You ever seen those videos we make with the crazy funky techno music, vertigo inducing rapid fire edits, quick pans, etc. that we show at launches? You know, the videos that make you feel like writing software is always done in a hip-hop office space...

Chris Pendleton has the scoop that once again NBC likes to send Matt Lauer to the far flung corners on the planet with the latest installment of its, "Where in the World is Matt Lauer?" segment. I wonder how many frequent flyer miles he's earned in all...

So I've been slacking lately in blogging. I haven't blogged since last week when I was down in SF for Web 2.0. That was a great show and I met tons of cool people. Went to the Yahoo Brickhouse down town for a party but when I showed up they ran out of...

I was reading Chris Pendleton's blog today when I came across a feature I knew of but didn't quite understand to the extent it could be used. Chris blogged about his upcoming trip to the Coachella Music Festival and he got the idea to create a Public...

Web 2.0 is really a great conference. I have never been at this event before but I'm glad I'm here now. Been seeing lots of folks I recognize. Robert Scoble is out and about doing interviews and otherwise looking like he's having a great time. We had...

I'm really lucky in that there are really a ton of people who work on the Virtual Earth team who are prodigious producers of great content. Johannes Kebeck is one of those people. Johannes works over in Europe on Virtual Earth and over the last couple...

As I've only been working on the Virtual Earth team now for about 12 weeks or so, I am constantly surprised about how our customers use Virtual Earth in ways I never could have dreamed of. Here's another great example of this. A company called, Sungevity...

So I've lived here in Seattle for a little over 8 years now having moved here when I joined Microsoft back in 2000. You know before I moved here I'd hear something like this: "Oh, the Winters here are really mild" or "It hardly ever snows here, maybe...

I'll be heading out tomorrow afternoon, flying down to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 conference. I've never been to this conference before so I am really looking forward to it. I wish I could get off my rear to go get some business cards though. I've...

Steve Lombardi has step-by-step instructions for how to create driving directions in Live Maps and then export them to your GPS unit. Check it out, http://virtualearth.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2BBC66E99FDCDB98!14612.entry

I know that Microsoft explores alternative renewable energy sources to power its data centers around the world but I didn't know that our Virtual Earth data center in Boulder, CO is pretty much completely powered by wind energy. In fact we just fired...

If you're like me writing java script in notepad is not a fun experience. Thanks to Marc Schweigert, a Developer Evangelist in our Developer and Platform Evangelism team now you can write Virtual Earth applications and take advantage of the benefits of...

Hey everybody, my name is Mark Brown and welcome to my inaugural blog post. I am a Senior Product Manager in the Search Business Group here at Microsoft and I am responsible for the Partners and Developers for our Virtual Earth product. I've been on the...