I enjoyed this:

Which gives this:

I love it!

Thanks to Orange_Monkey!

I am loving the Where’s Gary map game! 

As mapperz explains:

Walkers Crisps and Multimap have join together to create a fun game.
Find Gary three times in a day and you can claim one ‘Gary’s Great Trips’ point.

I have only managed to find him once so far:

Wondering who Gary is?  See here and here.

Basically  you can do a search for a property and see the results on a map, or use the “Explore Area” feature to see a map of an area with information about local amenities (e.g. schools and gyms) and data such as crime levels and constituencies:

I love the use of heat maps to display crime levels:

I’m in one of those hot red patches!

This is a really well designed application that lets you explore a large amount of local information.

Mapperz has done a great blog post on this.

Ever wondered where you need to go for that meeting?  Ever wanted an easy way to add a map to an email?  Well now your roblem is solved! Multimap have juts released a new Outlook Map Add-in.  It can be installed from the new Multimap site ‘Explore Multimap’ here .

Currently the features of the add-in include:

• Add map to a meeting request
• Map you contacts
• Add a map to an email

And of course you can make use of all of those great Multimap local maps styles (like Bartholomew’s and Ordnance Survey).

Happy outlook mapping!

eGov Toolkit have just done a great new Multimap implementation for Pinpoint (an application providing planning application information). 

Here is a great example for Epping Forest District council.  It provides access to data on 100,000 planning applications made over the last 60 years!

The features of this application I really like are:

• The use of custom tiles to create an overlay that ‘washes out’ the areas outside the district.   Simple and effective!:

• A special ‘cluster’ marker that automatically zooms in on the map to display all the applications in the cluster.  This creates a great, simple user experience without cluttered maps:

• A collapsing/expanding sidebar that provides the history of a site when a marker on the map is selected:

• And coolest of all, a time bar slider that automatically updates the display of application on the map so you can look at the history of those 100,000 applications:

Oh and it uses ASP.NET on the server and SQL 2008 (including the new spatial features) in the backend….

Recently I’ve been thinking about the the world of mobile telephony and what it means for maps.  So we’ve had the iPhone since June 2007 and it certainly has exploded consumer expectations for interactive Location Based Services.  For better or worse, the iPhone is now the yardstick against which all new mobile devices and applications are measured.  We’ve also had the interesting (and dramatic) developments with Nokia in the world of mapping.  Firstly, their mobile map applications started in earnest with their Gate5 acquisition in August 2006.  Then of course there was Nokia’s acquisition of Navteq in 2007, a massive investment (or even gamble?) in mapping.  Meanwhile we have had Google Android, a mobile operating system with a location based services (and mapping applications) in its heart.   We are now seeing the first Android phones., so it will be interesting to see how their popularity develops.

So obviously there are many existing developments in the world of mobile mapping.  What has Microsoft been doing?  Customers I work with are often asking me how they can use Microsoft mapping technologies to develop mobile applications.  The answer is: in lots of ways and with lots of different technologies!  I thought it would be useful to do a blog post that summarises all the different ways you can use Microsoft Mapping technologies to develop mobile mapping applications.  So here we go…

Note - This post will be quite long and take a while, so I will keep adding new things to it gradually.

Multimap – Map2Mobile

I thought I would start with the simplest 1st.  Multimap has a technology called Map2Mobile which allows the integration of web mapping applications with mobile devices.  In it’s simplest form a user on www.multimap.com can search for a location and then send a map of this location to their mobile phone:

This is also available within the Multimap API.  See this description of how it works.  This means that Multimap customers can use this to add Map2Mobile functionality to their own mapping applications.  For example 02 have added MAp2Mobile to their storefinder:

This allows users to send a map of the store location to the phone and this in turn helps O2’s conversion rates.

Basically the Map2Mobile technology works by sending a SMS (text message) to the specified phone.  The message contains a link to a WAP page to display the map with a marker for the store etc.  The great thing is that, as this is pretty basic technology, it works on almost any phone these days.

Multimap – Storefinder4Mobile

Storefinder4Mobile is a “where’s my nearest?” service for people on the move.  It allows consumers to search for stores, dealers or other locations by a “known” location (e.g., postal/ZIP code or place name) or be automatically positioned by network cell ID.  An SMS containing location details is sent directly to the consumer’s mobile device.   Consumers can then request a map and additional locations, and zoom in or out.

To see this in action send an SMS to 81066 with the text “Shell”.  This will reply with your nearest Shell Station:

Replying with “shellmap” returns a link to a map:

Clicking on the link brings this map:

Live Search for Mobile

The recently updated Live Search for Mobile allows users to use live search from their mobile device as well us using maps on their mobile.   This includes the ability to find local businesses, restaurants, and shops that are nearby.  You can see ratings and reviews to see what others have said.  It is also possible to click to see additional info such as storefront photos and detail reviews. The new release includes Walking Directions, Collection import and Bird’s Eye photography. 

Virtual Earth Web Services (VEWS)

The relatively new VEWS SOAP based web services really open up the possibilities for easily developing Mobile based map applications.  Of course the full Virtual Earth AJAX map control is not really the right thing for developing mobile applications.  Previously mobile developers has to access VE Map tiles, geocoding, routing and searching in unsupported hacks.  Now they can use VEWS to provide simple, supported ‘lower level’ access to VE via SOAP. 

So for example, a developer can now easily develop a Windows Mobile application using the .Net Compact Framework and call out to VEWS.

See this full MSDN example:  How Do I: Use the Virtual Earth Geocode Web Service on Windows Mobile Devices?

Virtual Earth on the iPhone

It is also possible to develop Virtual Earth applications for the iPhone!  Chris Pendleton has done a couple of great blog posts on this here and here. 

Microsoft Tag, Mobiles and Virtual Earth

Microsoft Tag is a a mobile tagging system which uses tags (similar to 2D bar codes) to allow mobile users to identify things and/or places.  Users can aim their camera phone at a Tag to discover where or what it is. 

Johannes Kebeck has done some great work on creating applications that combine Microsoft TAG and Virtual Earth in a mobile application.  See his blog post on this here. 

An interesting blog post here on experiences searching for address and postcode in London on Google Maps and Multimap by Ham Life. 

I like the statement:

So I put my instinctive hatred of Microsoft aside and tried multimap instead.

Putty hatred aside paid off in this case! 

When you search for a place or address, a box is now place on the location giving useful local context information (for example a link to the nearest railway station):

Multimap.com has always had Ordnance Survey LandRanger mapping available for the UK, but as this is not turned on by default (you have to change the map type).  Therefore many people did not realise it was available.  Now (where Ordnance Survey mapping is available) a special OS Map button (with logo) is displayed so you can see that it is available:

But wait, there is more!  Ordnance Survey Explorer maps are now available when you zoom in further.  Explorer are 1:25k scale maps which are great for walking and exploring rural areas.  They even show the Open Access Areas using an orange outline.  So we can see in example below where we have the right to roam:

The Ordnance Survey Explorer mapping is available in the Multimap API too.

More details are on the multimap blog.

Happy exploring!

Update

The Mapperz blog has done a great post on this.

Another good post from the walkers perspective on Live for the Outdoors.

It makes nice use of the Multimap marker de-cluttering and info boxes.  Using very simple and small marker icons (like these red houses) is always a good idea.

I also like the way users can easily modify their search:

I particularly like all the different methods of sharing the resulting map search:

Allowing users to IM a map to each other is a great idea!

Of course it also benefits form all the great Multimap local UK Mapping (e.g. Ordnance Survey maps). 

To do this I used the Multimap.com embedded map functionality (which I blogged about earlier).  This time I have hacked the HTML provided to customise the embedded map and make sure it fits neatly on the sidebar.

To start with I went to multimap.com and found the relevant location I wanted for my embedded map (in this case Innsbruck):

I then used the "customize and preview map" link in the "link to this map" dialogue box to customise the map to my needs.  This brings up this page:

This page provides a simple GUI to customise your embedded map.  I chose a custom pixel size of 200 x 400 (i.e. thin and long) so it would fit nicely in my sidebar.  The resulting HTML for my embedded map is provided in the "HTML" text box in the bottom.  In this case I do not have much room on my sidebar so I wanted to remove the extra links at the bottom to different multimap.com maps, Birds Eye and directions.To do this, I need to hack the HTML returned.  So firstly I copied the HTML out of the bottom text box, which gives me this when I paste it into UltraEdit (a great programmers text editor): 

<div id="MMEmbeddedMap" style="padding:8px"><iframe width="200" height="400"
frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"
src="http://www.multimap.com/client/embed/?width=200&height=400&lat=47.26525
&lon=11.39771&zoomFactor=13&emid=Q3zd58nstiQM4o37TGjfm9hDXl4MelqK
&mapType=hybrid&moveMap=0,0">
</iframe><div>
<a href="http://www.multimap.com/maps/?lat=47.26525&lon=11.39771
&zoomFactor=13&mapType=hybrid">#]
View Aerial Image of Innsbruck, Tirol (Tyrol), Austria</a> on Multimap.com
<br /><a href="http://www.multimap.com/maps/?lat=47.26525&lon=11.39771
&zoomFactor=13&mapType=oblique">Bird's Eye view of Innsbruck, Tirol (Tyrol),
Austria</a><br />Get directions <a href="http://www.multimap.com/directions/?
lat_2=47.26525&lon_2=11.39771&countryCode_2=AT&displayName_2=Innsbruck, Tirol
(Tyrol)&qs_2=Innsbruck, Tirol (Tyrol)">to</a> or
<a href="http://www.multimap.com/directions/?lat_1=47.26525&lon_1=11.39771
&countryCode_1=AT&displayName_1=Innsbruck, Tirol (Tyrol)&qs_1=Innsbruck,
Tirol (Tyrol)">from</a> Innsbruck, Tirol (Tyrol), Austria
</div></div>

The I edited the HTML in UltraEdit to remove the extra links, change the wording and modify the layout:

<div id="MMEmbeddedMap" style="padding:8px">
<iframe width="200" height="400" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0"
marginwidth="0"
src="http://www.multimap.com/client/embed/?width=200&height=400&lat=47.26525
&lon=11.39771&zoomFactor=13&emid=Q3zd58nstiQM4o37TGjfm9hDXl4MelqK
&mapType=hybrid&moveMap=0,0">
</iframe><div><a href="http://www.multimap.com/maps/?lat=47.26525&lon=11.39771
&zoomFactor=13&mapType=hybrid">Innsbruck</a> on Multimap.com<br />
</div></div>

I use WordPress for my blog, so I have added the embedded map onto my sidebar as a simple text widget.  In this text widget, all I need to do is paste in my edited HTML for the embedded map:

Then I saved the changes and checked the appearance on my sidebar.  You can see the results for yourself….

So I hope I have shown that not only is it really easy to create embedded maps on multimap.com, but you can also easily hack the resulting HTML to suit your specific needs.

Happy hacking and embedding!