Steve Milroy is one of the sharpest guys I’ve met in the mapping space. He’s talking about using MSN mapping in mashups via the Microsoft Live Local.

Windows Live Local Demos.

MS is licensing a national database of “birds eye” 45 degree angle views which are really appealing and can be embedded in the ap. Low altitude airplane pix. This is a great feature that (i think) Yahoo and Google do not have.

VE control is integrated with MS Atlas controls.

19 view levels, from street to above earth. Easy to geocode using ?

Geo RSS = very cool. If a blog or post has geo tags, you can then use VE to integrate that location-specific content with your map. I talked to Steve about this yesterday as it would be a killer approach if people were tagging their blogs with locations. Unfortunately they are not, but I’m thinking maybe Blogger , Typepad, WordPress et al shoud at do a basic auto-tag of the blog with geocoded info showing the city location of the blogger. This might be helpful in several applications that reference blogs and blog content.

MapCruncher – easily create layers and add them into mashups. This is COOL. Take floor plan and click to match with Virtual Earth points of reference. Then you can allow the user to navigate outside and *inside* the building. What a great way to show a Univ Campus map or navigate large, complex buildings.

MS is “investing heavily” to make this the best of breed mapping application.
Philosophy: “What it’s like there”
Streetside preview. (slow on this connection) Streetside is very cool as it allows a “drivers eye view” of Seattle and ?. Of all the stuff at Microsoft’s MIX06, streetside was the thing that got the big response from the crowd.

——– not part of Steve’s presentation —-

Nice comparison of Yahoo, MSN, Google, Mapquest, Ask mapping from CNET.

Mapbuilder.net is a neat place to make simple maps *really* easily. They were at Mashup Camp 1 and I think will be here tomorrow.

Mapping Anecdote: Homestead, where I’m staying, printed out Yahoo Directions for me from there to the museum when I asked them for directions. Cool! Yet due to geocoding or some other technical glitch Yahoo had me turning left rather than right when I reached my destination. Not cool. but I’m not complaining – these are simply great yet evolving technologies.