Virtual Earth & MapPoint B2B : MapPoint Web Service

Rooftop Geocoding Now Available!

cpendle — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 21:52:00 GMT

The era of rooftop geocoding is upon us. Rooftop geocoding is now available in MapPoint Web Service. What is rooftop geocoding? With the popularity of aerial photography interpolation geocoding which has been in use for years is no longer sufficient to accurately pinpoint where a location is. Rooftop geocoding specifies exactly where the roof of a particular address is. FYI – interpolation is a process of estimating where on the street a particular location is. The upside of rooftop is many: (1) The point will be properly placed on the address; (2) the point will no longer be in the middle of the road; (3) for routing, we cross-bred interpolation with rooftop to put the point in front of the right address – otherwise routing would be all screwed up.

Here’s what you need to do to get rooftop geocodes. First off, you need to have an MapPoint Web Service account. Rooftop geocodes are not available via Virtual Earth, but they will display on Virtual Earth – a lat/lon is a lat/lon to VE. Rooftop geocoding is not available in the batch system (Customer Data Service). It is available only via the front end APIs – specifically, FIND using the FindAddress() method. When you make your request, set the “RooftopFlag” in FindResultMask (in the FindSpecification.Options class) when calling Find Address. You’ll get back a find result with two locations, one called “FoundLocation” and one called “BestViewableLocation” the latter of which is rooftop. You can create a batch service on your side to go through your records hitting our front end APIs to get your rooftop geocodes. Let us know if you plan to destroy our front ends – a little warning is always a good thing – just shoot me a mail so we don’t block your IPs. We have approximately 45 million rooftop geocodes, since that's all that is available, but will continue to push more and more out as they become available. And, yes, it is only in the US. I know, I know, no love for the rest of the world, but if you know of someone who actually is creating this data, let me know. We'd be interested.

So, yeah! for everyone since we can now accurately pinpoint 45 million locations on aerial photos. Oh, and we didn't roll this out on the consumer site (Live Maps); not yet, at least.

MWS 5.2 is now Live!

cpendle — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 05:51:00 GMT

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but for those customer who use Microsoft's MapPoint Web Service, today marks a fantastic day. With the release of Version 5.2 we have moved out of the Microsoft Extranet system (which is great and all), but now you are no longer held to the strict password resets required by Microsoft. Moving forward, you will establish Windows Live ID (formerly Passport) accounts for all of your users. So, when you login to the Customer Service Site you will do so using your Windows Live ID. "Wow, that's great, but big deal." No, you don't understand. Your batch system is also covered with Windows Live ID. Sooooo, no longer are you required to change your password every 45 days, then make a code change to your batch upload application, then test it, the push it to production, then test it, then wait 45 days to do it again. No, no! Now, you get your Windows Live ID, set your password - code change, test and push to production - for the last time! Or, however frequently you see fit. This is big and you should be happy - you know who you are - you've been complaining about this since I joined the group and we finally got it fixed! Yeah!

InfoNow parts ways with MapQuest for Microsoft

cpendle — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 01:52:00 GMT

It's official - InfoNow is now a Microsoft partner and will be pushing the Virtual Earth and MapPoint Web Service platforms for its customers. Why is this significant? Oh, I don't know....maybe because they are one of if not the biggest integrator of MapQuest technology into customer applications....maybe because they've been seen as thought leaders in the industry and have a great pulse on what they need to do to best serve their customers....maybe MapQuest has been slow to innovate when compared to Microsoft (and Google)....maybe MapQuest is losing customers every day and InfoNow doesn't want to be victim to losing their customer base because the platform they're pushing is losing the battle. All possibilities, all possibilities. The good news is that if you're an InfoNow customer you now have an option to join about the AJAX mapping train (or opt for the MapPoint Web Service maps). You won't lose much if any functionality by moving and how cool are you to have access to tiled maps, aerial photos, bird's eye imagery and an integrated 3D envorinment that runs in the browser? Pretty cool, is how cool you are. Here's a link to the official press release from InfoNow. Where are those MapQuest defenders now?? You can still have your MapQuest.com, just don't expect to see it on many other web sites.

Going to ETech 2007?

cpendle — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:36:00 GMT

ETech (Emerging Technology Conference) is in San Diego which is reason enough, but now you have another reason - ME! Ha! I'll be presenting a 45-minute session titled "Virtual Earth in the Enterprise" March 28 @ 5:25 You can read about me and my session on the ETech site. This will be my first trip to ETech, so I'm looking forward to it. And, to get to come to my home town that's just gravy. John Curlander from the Virtual Earth team will also be presenting @ ETech. His presentation is Thursday @ 11AM titled, "The Making of Virtual Earth." John came to Microsoft through the Vexcel acquisition and is the reason we have such awesome 3D photo-textured models. His discussion is a must see.

Microsoft Hosting Summit 2007

cpendle — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 05:28:00 GMT

If you're coming to the Microsoft Hosting Summit Tuesday, March 20 expect to see a kick ass Virtual Earth demo by none of than yours truly. I'll be presenting an application you've probably seen before, as well as, one you probably haven't. I'll get 4 whole minutes during Andy Lees' presentation. Hope to see you there!

ConocoPhilips Finds Gas Stations with Virtual Earth

cpendle — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:07:00 GMT

ConocoPhilips (COP) replaced their MapPoint Web Service Station Finder and Trip Planner with Virtual Earth. COP brands include Union 76, Conoco and Philips 66. Go to their site and click on "station finder" to enter your address and search radius. You'll get a list of the nearest stations including the brand, with address and phone number, and a popup containing the same information and the coordinates (interesting choice). They don't have the draggable maps with auto refreshing data which is a bummer.

The trip planner is very useful. If you want to drive to from say Seattle to San Diego because you're a bit home sick and feel gas is cheaper than flying you can enter a starting and ending address and the site will provide you driving directions (included in the Virtual Earth API). But, the site will also provide you with all of the ConocoPhilips locations along the route (aka "Route Canal" - you like it!). So, they're hitting MapPoint Web Service to find the nearest locations along the route (see the FindNearRoute method in MWS) and parse through the SOAP XML to push out a StringBuilder to have the points rendered on Virtual Earth. Okay, the last part was pretty geeky, but hey I wrote an article on how to integration MapPoint Web Service with Virtual Earth a looooong time ago!

SMS and WAP to Find Nearest Starbucks

cpendle — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:34:00 GMT

This week Starbucks rolled out a new SMS service which has gotten quite a bit of press. The process is simple, you send a SMS (aka text message) containting a postal code to 697289 (MySBUX) and you will receive back the nearest Starbuck's locations. Or, you could logon to www.starbucks.com from a mobile device (which forwards to http://mobile.starbucks.com/starbucks/) and you can use their new mobile store locator.

The applications are powered by our MapPoint Web Service for geocoding the postal code, finding the nearest locations and sending back the information to the device. As a part of the application we send back the store address, a clickable phone number for direct dialing and store attributes such as wifi available and drive thru locations. If you're on the mobile application, as opposed to the SMS app, you'll also get back a navigable map and step by step driving directions. Overall, the applications are very user friendly with minimal user entry - important for a mobile application. Plus, did you know we could integrate with mobile devices?? Well, we do. Starbucks is one of our many customers using our SOAP XML Web Service for mobile applications. Because MWS is SOAP XML it supports just about every platform integration scenario. Are you next?

InfoSpace.com Launches on MapPoint Web Service

cpendle — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:27:00 GMT

Infospace.com and local.infospace.com is now live on MapPoint Web Service. This has been a long process that started 2 years ago(!) and is now live. InfoSpace powers such sites as MetaCrawler.com, WebCrawler.com, WebFetch and DogPile.com. All yellow page result listings from these site will now use MapPoint Web Service maps.

Try Local Searching via SMS

cpendle — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The mobile team at Microsoft has released an SMS application that lets you perform quick searches by sending a text message to 95483 (WLIVE or OTRIE for those of us with PPC). It's actually pretty slick. I sent a text for "sergios 92123" and I received 2 SMS messages back (2 pages worth since apparently Sprint limits the message size). But sure enough "Super Sergio's" my favorite local San Diego burrito shop was the first result with the address and clickable phone number. You can also do queries like "q MSFT" to get Microsoft stock quotes; "d definition" to get the definition of defintion; "? what's the capital of Bolivia". I did find a little bug with the d query. I sent "d knot" hoping to get the definition of "knot," but instead was returned "KNOT: 1450 AM Prescott, AZ" - apparently, a radio station. So, they've got a bit of fine tuning, but still a very useful local searching tool with very little interaction required.

Also, I sent "? what time is it" and got a msg stating there was no match for that query and to reply with "h" for help, so there's one more letter you can use. BTW - the capital of Bolivia is La Paz (seat of government) and Sucre (country capital and seat of judiciary) - who knew?? :)

MapPoint Web Service v5.2

cpendle — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:17:00 GMT

MWS 5.2 is scheduled to release to the web on March 15. Most of the changes are backend hardware and architecture, so you won't be affected; however, there is one significant change you should be aware of and that is authentication. We're moving our authentication away from Microsoft Extranet (requiring a password change every 45 - 60 days) to Windows Live ID authentication (formerly Microsoft Passport). So, no longer will you be sent annoying email after annoying email to change your pw. Once you change it you can change as frequently (or infrequently) as you like (or your security policy mandates). This is something that has been REALLY lame for a long time and is finally getting attention. One point of clarification, since I know someone will ask :), is that your Windows Live ID used in MapPoint Web Service will not be programmably available for the Windows Live ID API. So, if you want to change your pw you go to your account settings in Windows Live ID and change it there. This change is a very, very, very, very good thing.

Upgrade from MWS to VE

cpendle — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:12:00 GMT

Did you know upgrading from MWS to VE from a contract perspective is SOOOOO easy? It has recently come to my attention that many of our current customers didn't even know Microsoft owns BOTH MapPoint Web Service AND Virtual Earth. Soooo, just talk to your local licensing rep. You get everything that VE and MWS have to offer under 1 contract. We recently sent out the following message to our customers:

Valued MapPoint Web Service Customer,

Do you want draggable maps, aerial, satellite and bird's eye imagery? If so, then look no further than Microsoft’s Virtual Earth platform.

The Virtual Earth platform enables you to deliver innovative solutions and breakthrough customer experiences. With Virtual Earth you can enhance your applications with dynamic AJAX-based draggable maps, aerial imagery, satellite imagery, Microsoft’s exclusive bird's eye imagery, polygons and more. The Virtual Earth platform is Microsoft’s next generation mapping and location service. The Virtual Earth platform can be used in conjunction with your existing MapPoint Web Service applications - many of our customers do it today. Here are some example Virtual Earth maps.

To try the Virtual Earth mapping experience go to Live Search Maps (http://maps.live.com). Virtual Earth powers Live Search Maps, Microsoft’s online local search and mapping web site, but this power can be in your hands too. To learn more about the Virtual Earth platform API please visit the Virtual Earth SDK at http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/. If you have questions on how to obtain a license for the Virtual Earth platform please contact your MapPoint Web Service Sales Specialist or contact Virtual Earth Sales at maplic@microsoft.com or 1-800-426-9400 (ext. 11315).

Target Corp. Live on MWS & Virtual Earth

cpendle — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 22:31:00 GMT

Target Corporation launched their new store locator with MapPoint Web Service and Virtual Earth. Both? Yes! See, Target was smart enough to realize that they wanted to maintain the same user experience for their locator that users had become familiar with, but also provide a robust interface which includes aerial photography, scrollable maps, and auto-refreshing map data. So, by default you can search for stores using their "standard maps" which will produce results mapped out on MapPoint Web Service. You can hover over icons for more data including an input box for driving directions, plus pan/zoom using their controls. The "enhanced maps" version integrates Virtual Earth allowing you to switch to aerial view, bird's eye view, grab the map and pan to see more locations off the map, zoom in to street level without freshing the whole web page. Store attribute data filtering such as Pharmacy, Photo Centers, and Super Targets are handled when the request is made and rendered onto either map. I envision this to be the default implementation which other retailers will follow. Nice job Target!

Avis and MapPoint Web Service

cpendle — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 03:36:00 GMT

Avis Europe just rolled out their new site using MapPoint Web Service. You can read the Microsoft press release here and see the working application here. I like how they declare it "hiring a car." Kind of like hiring a limo driver or something. Nice implementation though!

CSR 5.1 is Now Live

cpendle — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:34:00 GMT

The official version of MWS is now 4.5.1, for the record. We upgraded many of the backend infrastructure and added some features. In a nutshell we (1) added a new European map style, (2) added some logo removal capabilities for smaller device screens, (3) updated the geocoding data, (4) and fixed some bugs with the Find Service. A minor release, but important none-the-less. We'll continue to have customer service releases such as this pretty much every month from here on out. Watch for the next release (CSR 5.2; MWS v 4.5.2) in early March.

Come see us at Inman - NYC

cpendle — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:09:00 GMT

I'll be working the Microsoft Virtual Earth booth at the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference next week. Stop by the booth and say, "Hey!" I'm going to try to blog the trip on my Inman provided blog, but being on a time zone 3 hours ahead of what I'm used to may lead to some laziness. . . we'll see. It should be a good show - I expect to see the usual players there, but perhaps we'll see something that will surprise me. You never know.

Here's some info on the conference if you're a last minute kind of person: http://www.realestateconnect.com/