The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that we released maps of many new areas over the weekend on Multimap.com. We’ve combined our street level maps in Europe, with maps from Microsoft Virtual Earth that provide you with improved country and region level maps worldwide and new street level coverage of including…

Asia - Japan
Africa - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, South Africa
Eastern Europe -Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia
Central and South America - Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile

These new maps are available on Multimap.com today, and will be available via our Multimap API for business customers and Open API for developers over the next few weeks.

Our friends on the Microsoft Virtual Earth team have also just delivered another 20TB of Aerial and Bird’s Eye images, which also includes some new UK imagery. A big thank you to them all!!

Enjoy!!

• High Resolution Aerial and Bird’s Eye from Microsoft Virtual Earth - All the great imagery that you see on Multimap.com is now available in the Open API.
• Local Information - As well as offering direct access to geocoding, routing, and static map services through our web services API, we have today added the ability to directly query our local information databases through the same REST style interface. This will enable you to mash data such as cash points, transport links, wi-fi hotspots and Wikipedia articles into your applications. Special thanks go to TeleAtlas and TotalHotspots for helping to make this happen.

In the last week or so, many of you told us that you have wanted to build mash-ups with data stored in OSGB x/y co-ordinates and grid references that are tricky to use with mapping API’s such as the Open API (which only tend to support WGS84 co-ordinates). To help make this easier, we’re making available a beta feature that allows you transform these co-ordinates so that you can place them onto our maps. We’ve put it together so quickly, that we haven’t had chance to finish to documentation for it, but Richard’s blog has much more.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to smarten up the sign-up process to make it more straightforward to get an API key. Existing Open API users will need to go back to the sign-up page and update your API key to get access to the new features.

For those of you going to Mashed, we’ve created a cheat sheet that has links to all the Multimap and Microsoft tools you can use, along with code snippets and links to tools and libraries that others have built.

The final batch of tickets has been released, but you’ll need to be quick as the tickets we released went in a few hours.

There will be a bunch of us wandering around at Mashed all weekend wearing Multimap t-shirts, and hopefully we’ll camp out in a corner armed with beanbags and Xbox’s, so come over and say hello.

See you there!!

With England spectacularly failing to quality, it’s down to the Multimap Istanbul office to get behind their national team (although we do have an English-born player ourselves!!!).

Everyone here in Turkey is getting very excited, and I have big hopes for local player Nihat Kahveci, who scored the winning goal to get us to the Championships.

There’s just the small matter of beating many peoples favourites Portugal at the Stade de Genève, followed by the host’s Switzerland (in front of packed home crowd in Basel), and then back to Geneva to meet the always dangerous Czech Republic, who beat the favourites Germany 3-0 on their way to qualifying!!! So no pressure then!?…

It all culminates with the Final at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium on June 29th.

Haydi Turkiye!!!!

So, the important bit. We have 100 tickets now available here. You’ll need the code, which is “microsoft”.

If you miss out, keep watching because more tickets will be released over the coming weeks. Hope to see you there.

Today heralds the start of another chapter at Multimap as we retire the ‘old’ site and move forward to embrace the next era of online mapping.

The end of an era always brings with it some reflection and, when I was thinking about what to write in this blog, I couldn’t help getting nostalgic. The ‘old’ site was once our ‘new’ site too and ran for several years generating enormous user growth due to its great features. It too, was replacing an ‘old’ site (an ‘old, old’ site if you like) and, in fact that site (the ‘old, old’ one) was replacing the original prototype that Sean, our founder, quite literally wrote in his spare room!

That was in 2000, and I was Multimap’s second employee who had joined in December of the previous year (in case you are wondering, Employee #1 - Karl - is still with Multimap). Looking at www.archive.org at a snapshot of the site back then, what stands out for me is the “nostalgic for the old site” link, which took you back to the original prototype. Even in those very early days we were mindful of our users’ feelings and respectful of the time that you invested in us. It would be foolish therefore not to build upon the legacy of the old site, bringing along all that is good about it as we continue to move forwards.

Just as we did 8 years ago, we’ve spent the last year listening to our customers and their feedback on what they like about our new site and what they preferred about the old. We hope we have incorporated the best of that feedback and addressed most of those concerns in the last year, and that the features of the new site represent a positive step for you.

In particular, we have focused on making the site simpler to use, and worked to improve many of the tools and features.

We have also remained true to our goal of leaving no users behind by trying to offer everyone the most usable service, especially for those using older computers and low-bandwidth Internet connections, such as dial-up. Back in April we quietly released a new ‘basic‘ version which hopefully offers the best of both worlds: many of the new and exciting features of the new site, larger maps and your choice of map styles, but with the ability to support older computers and users who do not have broadband. Since its release, the ‘basic’ version has been well received, so we’d like to talk a little bit more about it…

The ‘basic’ site has all of the maps you tell us you prefer, from the well-known Harper Collins street atlases to Ordnance Survey Landranger maps (if you don’t see the map you prefer, click on the arrow to the right of the “map” button on the map itself and you’ll see a list of available map types). The ‘basic’ site is just another view of our new site, which means that you can share links from it with your friends and family irrespective of whether they use the ‘basic’ or the ‘interactive’ version of the site. You can see the ‘basic‘ version by visiting the new site and clicking on the ‘basic maps’ link above the map. To return to the ‘interactive‘ version, just click ‘interactive maps’, which is also above the map.

We’ve also made other performance improvements, which has included changes to how we display content from our advertising partners.

By closely listening to our users, and responding accordingly, we have seen a steady migration of users from the old site to the new over the past year, just as they did in 2000. Visits to the old site have now dropped to levels where we feel the time is right to invest all our energy into our new site.

For those of you who haven’t yet tried out the new site, then allow us to highlight just some of the new features you might find useful:

Draggable Maps and Aerial Images

No more waiting for the page to load when you want to move the map with our ‘interactive’ version - just use your cursor to “grab” the map and “drag” it. Want to zoom in? Simple, just double-click the map or use the zoom control in the top-right-hand corner of the map. Click the ‘Aerial’ button to view fantastically detailed aerial images, courtesy of Microsoft Virtual Earth.

Bird’s Eye

Bird’s Eye images let you see the world from a unique new perspective. They are taken from low-flying aircraft with 4 high-resolution cameras facing north, south, east and west, which means that, in addition to the top-down aerial view, you can view buildings at a 45-degree angle from 4 directions. Bird’s Eye images are available on our ‘interactive’ version for many major cities around the world – and we’re adding new locations every month. John has also written an excellent blog about it.

Local Information

Explore your location before you travel. Use the “Useful Information” palette on our ‘interactive version’ to display cashpoints, railway stations, car parks and even Wikipedia articles on our maps.

Find a business

Now you can use our maps to find businesses in your area – or your destination. We’ve got details of everyone from accountants to woodworkers in the UK, US, Canada, France and Italy – with other countries coming soon.

Improved travel directions

We now offer you walking directions as well as driving directions; the ability to route between points of interest, as well as between addresses; and directions for even more countries. We also give separate maps for the start and end points as well as for your full journey.

For all those who embrace change and enjoy discovering new features and content, we know there are those who find these kinds of changes harder to accept, and we’re completely realistic that not all users may be happy with this change.

All we can ask is that you give our new site a chance, and keep talking to us, whatever your feedback.

You can drop us a line at: info@multimap.com

Back in 2000 we added Aerial imagery to our maps, a revolutionary feature that allowed users to view the world from a completely different perspective. Sometimes referred to as “orthorectified imagery”, aerial images are taken from commercial satellites and, for the most detailed images, from aircraft with very high resolution cameras pointing straight down. Images are examined for defects such as cloud cover, colour balanced and then carefully aligned with reference points on the ground to produce a seamless set of images. Multimap uses Aerial images from many suppliers, all around the world.

As you can see from this picture of Norwich Cathedral, our aerial images provide a fabulous level of detail, and are easy to navigate especially when road labels are also switched on

In 2005, Microsoft took this a step further and launched Bird’s Eye imagery in 2005 on Live Search Maps. Bird’s Eye images are unique in that they are taken from low-flying aircraft with 4 high resolution cameras facing north, south, east and west. This means that, in addition to the top down view, you can view buildings at a 45 degree angle from 4 directions.

So if we go back to Norwich Cathedral, but this time in Bird’s Eye mode, we can see it from a unique perspective, and get a real feeling for the shape of the building, as well as the detail.

If you are interested in how this imagery is captured, have a look at this 3 minute video from five’s “Gadget Show”.

The Virtual Earth team are hard at work processing multi-terabytes of this data received from local suppliers, increasing the coverage, especially here in the UK. Last month saw a massive update, with new Bird’s Eye images in places such as Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Chris Pendletons blog has lots more information, or just visit Multimap.com and see if the Birds Eye map button is available in your area.

So I leave it to you, go have fun and explore.

Short story: today we implemented the plans we described then.

Longer story:

More than 45% of the UK mapping audience works with Multimap, and we’re committed to Multimap as our mapping and local search site in the UK, with all the investment of time and technology that that means.

Today, if you use mapping through MSN UK or Live.com, you’ll be using Multimap, and have access to local map styles for your area, Bird’s Eye and aerial imagery, local points of interest (from Wi-fi to Wikipedia) the UK’s #1 routing service , a global reach (with new maps of China, new Bird’s Eye in Australia) and more.

While we have already brought some key elements of maps.live.com into the Multimap site (Bird’s Eye and high-resolution aerial imagery, for example), there is more to come. We will continue to offer users a choice until we have fully integrated the extra features, like Collections and 3-D.

We have links back to maps.live.com from Multimap for users who prefer to go in that direction today.

If you develop with, or your business uses, the Virtual Earth platform, rest assured that this does not affect you. We continue to invest in both products and expect to offer an expanded set of opportunities and features over time.

If you develop with, or your business uses, the Multimap platform, you now have access to Bird’s Eye, high-resolution aerial imagery and greater international coverage than ever before.

Thanks to all of your support and robust challenges over recent weeks, please continue to make yourselves heard.

Last Friday we announced the integration of Multimap into Windows Live Search in the UK and among the many developments, we started routing users directly to the Multimap service from MSN UK and Live.com. It was the first major step along the path of our integration within Microsoft.

On paper, it all looked good. Given that Multimap is a much more recognised brand with UK users than Live Maps site, serving over 45% of the UK mapping audience, building on this brand felt like the right thing to do. And it still does.

Steve’s blog explains a bit more about why it didn’t go as well as we hoped. As he mentions, we have turned off the redirection in the UK for the time being while the redirect stuff is nailed down. We’re currently working to provide a better user journey and signposting to Live Maps UK from the Multimap site in the short term, so that we can direct the MSN UK mapping traffic and other Live Search sites to http://www.multimap.com. Users entering http://maps.live.com directly will not be re-directed.

In the longer term, we’ll be working to integrate popular features such as Collections and 3D, as well as other great Live Search Maps functionality into multimap.com.

We’d also like to make it clear that Developers and businesses that have invested in Virtual Earth technology are unaffected by the redirection of our Live Maps and MSN mapping traffic to Multimap in the UK. We will continue to support both technology platforms and expect to offer an expanded set of opportunities and features over time.

The future for Multimap within Microsoft is very exciting. We apologise for any inconvenience we caused you in the past few days and thank you for your continued feedback and passion.

Back in December, we mentioned that it was all business as usual here at Multimap, and that is still very much the case. Our London office still provides the heartbeat of Multimap, and you still have to be quick to grab your favourite bagel on Fridays (cinnamon and raisin in my case)…

Being part of an organization such as Microsoft however, gives you the opportunity to access fantastic new technology and content. Since the new year we’ve been burning the midnight oil to bring some of these new capabilities to Multimap.com, and we’re delighted to show the results of this to you today.

First things first, Multimap is now the lead consumer mapping experience for Live Search in the UK, and we’re proud to welcome all the UK users of Live Search Maps to Multimap.com. It may have been a while since you last used Multimap.com, but we hope that you’ll find all the great features that you’re used to, plus much more.

For those of you not familiar with Live Search Maps, and the Virtual Earth platform that powers it, check out the fabulous Bird’s Eye images, which are now available on Multimap.com. Unlike normal satellite and aerial imagery that is taken from directly above, Bird’s Eye images are captured by low-flying aircraft and are taken from a 45 degree angle, facing north, south, east and west directions to give a unique perspective.

We’ve also taken the opportunity to update all our aerial imagery using Virtual Earth’s fabulous high-resolution images, as well as expanding our aerial coverage pretty much everywhere.

You may also be interested in using our “find a business” feature that uses the Live Search API to help you find local business, view maps and get directions. We’ve also madeit easier to search the web using live.com.

While we were at it, we also simplified our user interface, to help you find things easier, and we’ve refreshed our Travel Directions within the “get directions” section so that your journey is broken down into a series of manageable legs (which makes it much better for planning and printing).

You’ll be happy to hear that the features that you tell us you like the most are still here, such as our Barts London and Ordnance Survey Maps, nicely wrapped in a new widget that allows users to switch between the different map types easily. And if you have not checked out our Wikipedia overlay, you might want to explore the largest (and every growing) free-content encyclopedia on the Internet, as well as our other great Local Information.

Some of you have told us you want a mapping site that works over slow connections – so we created the new “basic maps” site that makes full use of our static maps API. To view, simply click the “basic maps”, next to the “MyMultimap” button.

We hope you like the changes that we have made and keep checking the blog as we make more new features available!

The service is provided through a partnership with Carbon Clear, a leading carbon management company that helps businesses and consumers manage their greenhouse gas emissions.

To use the carbon calculator, Multimap users click the “get directions” link on www.multimap.com, enter their journeys’ start and end points, click “find”, and are presented with step-by-step directions and route maps. The directions results now include information on the carbon footprint of the journey. A pull-down menu allows users to choose the correct engine size of their cars, and to compare the carbon footprint of the journey if they were to go by bus or train instead of driving. Users clicking on the “more info” link will find details of how the carbon footprint is calculated, and can visit the Carbon Clear website to take action to offset their journeys.

The story of how the carbon calculator came to be on the Multimap site is an interesting one, which provides a bit of insight into how we innovate, and how new services don’t always turn out as you expect….

As part of the redesign of the public web site, Multimap engaged IDEO, one of my favourite human factors and interaction consulting firms, to do a study of how people navigate and use maps in their day-to-day lives. This led to several of us attending several of IDEO’s evening events; at one of these I got talking with Clay Shirky, the writer, consultant and blogger, on the subject of carbon footprints of Internet companies. He suggested that as well as calculating and offsetting Multimap’s own carbon footprint we might like to build something in to our travel directions service to allow people to offset individual journeys.

I liked this idea, and I posted it to Multimap’s innovation bulletin board. It did not generate a lot of attention or discussion – about five comments in total, but all of them were positive and it featured quite high in the scoring system that is applied to all innovation ideas. I should point out that all submissions to the innovation bulletin board are anonymous – nobody knew the idea came from me, and I don’t know who posted the comments.

Then, Multimap ran its first “innovation week”, during which about 50 software developers worked entirely on new ideas and innovations – most of them from the bulletin board but also a few others that had been floating around all year. The carbon calculator was one of these, and was taken to the stage where it could go live on the public site.

Although the original idea was to let people offset individual journeys, it turns out that the actual amount of money involved is very small – something like 1p per Kg of CO2. It is far too small for a credit card transaction, and also far too much hassle. We thought of doing something with SMS reverse billing, but if a user spent 25p on a text message then most of that would go to the networks and service providers - only something like 5p to 8p would actually go to carbon offsetting – very inefficient and not the kind of image we want to be projecting.

So, we left out the actual offsetting and went live with the service more-or-less as you see it today. I announced it at our weekly meeting, and one of the B2C sales team asked if it would be possible to offer sponsorship to a car company. As it happened, Volkswagen had been talking to us for some time about ways to raise awareness of the new BlueMotion technology, with its very low carbon footprint. Within a few weeks Volkswagen was sponsoring the offset calculator.

Since then we’ve had several enquiries from our automotive clients about building the same functionality in to their web sites, but unlike the service on the public site, the solution has to be internationally aware, reporting in litres per 100 Km as well as MPG, working with US gallons as well as Imperial units, and supporting all the other variants required of a global service. This makes it ten times as much work as the original very simple idea, not least because we want to do all of this in a robust, configurable way that can be a platform for new ideas and enhancements for years to come.

It’s not often that I get a chance to announce new products and functionality, so I’m especially pleased to announce that our Multimap API for business customers now features an optional carbon emissions calculator. If you are not currently a customer of Multimap and would like a trial of the Multimap API, or you would like to try the calculator in your existing service, please contact the Multimap Business Services team.

And that’s how the carbon calculator got on to the Multimap site. As with so many innovations it started out with one business model which didn’t work but stirred up lots of interest and became successful with a different commercial approach quite soon after we released it. And although the basic idea is very simple indeed, our B2B clients all want slight variants on the same theme; since we’re able to deliver this in an easily-configurable way through our API then we should have the beginning of a flexible and robust ASP service.