Stefan here, sitting in the Sheraton in Munich for a few days Europe-side to talk about Live Search. First up tomorrow I’ll be meeting with our Search Technology Center team here in Munich (they focus on relevance), and then we’re hosting a meet-up for some Search-minded folks in the German office. Wednesday I’ll be keynoting and talking to the cr.. more »

It recently occurred to me that there is a misunderstanding within the Virtual Earth Web Service SDK that may lead you to believe that you could set the to get a Bird’s eye image. Not the case. This is part of the method for getting tiles (not an actual map). So, via the you have access to all of our tiles – road, aerial, hybrid and Bird’s eye, a.. more »

Happy Earth Day, my fellow Virtual Earthlings. What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to highlight a couple Virtual Earth applications? Ok, I could think of a few ways, but since we’re all stuck inside on Earth Day….wait, maybe I should go work outside today….I’ll give you some relevant sites that have integrated into their applicat.. more »

Another massive release of imagery coming online for my fellow Virtual Earthlings to peruse. This release is a mere 9+ TB of data; however, it covers over 1 million square kilometers of Earth. Here’s the list of new areas that came online or were refreshed this month – all ortho, but a mix of satellite imagery and aerial phot.. more »

Shout out to all of you who listened in on the web casts for April. Both web casts are now available on demand for your viewing and listening pleasure (see below). If you missed any of the our web casts, you can listen and learn at any time via our Microsoft Virtual Earth resources page Fleet and Mobile Workforce Solutions What’s New in Microsoft Vi.. more »

What the heck is going on with this swine flu thing? I was in the elevator at The Roosevelt last night and these guys are saying, “Don’t eat the carnitas (pork) no matter what.” Um, I don’t think you can get this new swine flu from eating pig, but apparently you get from any other normal means of transmitting any other flu strain – hand shaking, k.. more »

I had a few inquiries as to how one could programmatically turn weather off in the Virtual Earth AJAX Control. Didn’t know there was weather? Yes, turn on 3D by clicking the “3D” button on your favorite Virtual Earth web site (such as ). Once you get down to a particular zoom level you’ll see the clouds appear (given it’s a cloudy day in the respec.. more »

Dear Bing (the Author),   We couldn’t help sit up and take notice of your offer of services from one Bing to another.  We were moderately surprised and mildly excited. As you might have guessed, today is quite a big day for us.  Even so, we dropped everything when we saw your press release this morning.  After an emergency meeting (three people.. more »

Okay, it’s been a long day, so let’s find today’s time waster to blow off some steam…ah, UMapper has a new Flash-based, Microsoft Virtual Earth game called “GeoDart .” The object? Click the aerial photo closest to location specified to identify where it is. The closer you are and the faster you respond, the more points you accumulate. Get a high s.. more »

With the release of Windows 7 RC to the world which you can now freely download from the Microsoft Windows web site , I figured I would at least let you know where Microsoft fits into the equation. First off, there’s a location API built into the operating system. This means that from within Windows your applications can access a single API that wi.. more »

Today MSN announced a new version of its local offering , one step in a long term plan to help users stay in the know wherever they are. The new MSN City Guides is an entirely re-vamped site, featuring a new design with integrated , video, content sharing, and more. New integration with popular social networking services such as Windows Live and .. more »

This Sunday, Andy Samberg will host the 18 As you may remember, we did our first awards show instant answer for the Oscars back in February. After all the great feedback, we decided to continue the tradition with our new MTV Movie Awards instant answer. Just type in “mtv awards” and you'll see our pre-show instant answer with the awards show date.. more »

As a follow up to my presentation at MIX this year, I’ll be flying down under to attend REMIX – a sort of worldwide syndication of MIX. REMIX Australia will be held on Thursday, June 11 at the Star City Hotel in the Grand Harbour Ballroom at 80 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont NSW. My session, currently titled, “Introducing the Microsoft Virtual Earth Silver.. more »

Are you going to be in the Bay area tomorrow? Do you have a vested interest in search marketing? Know any web developers? Well then, make sure drop in to the Microsoft technology center in Mountain View, CA for a hearty discussion of search marketing hosted Microsoft, with guest speakers: Vanessa Fox, famed creator of Google’s Webmaster Tools, an.. more »

Today's installment of the From the Forums column involves a user who had difficulties getting the required authentication code installed on the default page of her website so she could take advantage of the The customized authentication code issued by Bing Webmaster Center ensures that only the site owner who registered with Webmaster Center can .. more »

Microsoft Virtual Earth now has a new name (and it’s not Kumo or Kiev). First, a little background to ensure we’re all on the same page. As of yesterday…. Live Search Maps was our consumer maps offering. This is the web site you go to for maps, aerial photos, directions, searching for points of interest and creating collections of your own person.. more »

of this series of blog posts on site reviews, we covered the whats and whys of conducting a site review of your website to see if you are ranking where you want to be. If you have compelling content to share with your users, you want them to find your site! After installing and registering to use the many webmaster tools available on the Web (such .. more »

The Bing blogs and forums team are grateful for the growing participation and readership of our user community. We've worked hard over the past year to provide compelling content that will help our users get the most out of the Bing experience. We sincerely hope that our readers and participants continue to find value in the content we produce! The .. more »

There have been a few requests for some international flair on the Live Search team blog, so we thought we’d give you an update on the European Search Technology Centre. Thanks for asking! There have been several important milestones in the creation of STC Europe: The first was in Paris, October 2008, when Steve Ballmer and Jordi Ribas (General Ma.. more »

I’ve spent a lot of time on airplanes in the past few weeks.  All that thinking about flights got me thinking about trying new things: new foods, new hotels, new smells in taxi cabs. That got me thinking about how we try new things in search.  And that reminded me of what we call it here when we try new things: flighting (which you may recall from.. more »