Two new store locator templates

 

As Multimap and MapPoint Web Service customers know, Microsoft will consolidate services to the Bing Maps platform effective November 18, 2011. While there is a substantial amount of helpful information available at our migration portal, including a devoted page to our migration partners, we wanted to highlight two store locator templates that have proven helpful to customers.

InKnowledge_logo

InKnowledge’s Bing Maps Locator Wizard was built around multiple Microsoft technologies, including Bing Maps AJAX Control 7.0, Bing Maps REST services, Bing Spatial Data Services, Windows Azure, SQL Azure and MVC3. Customers can use the basic locator to customize their site within minutes, and have the option to download or host in Windows Azure through InKnowledge’s portal (the service is free.) For more information, check out a preview video, or a more expansive overview video. If you’d rather read about the template, check out this blog entry from InKnowledge’s Ricky Brundritt.

shoothill

Shoothill’s My Store Locator template will be launched on Wed, May 18 during a Bing Maps webcast. The template was built using Bing Maps, Visual Studio 2010, Expressions Web 4, Hyper-V virtualisation technologies, Windows Azure and SQL Azure. As well as targeting former Multimap customers to enable them to make a seamless transition to the Bing Maps platform, the My Store Locator can assist any business seeking to migrate to Bing Maps from any mapping platform. Find out more and register for the webcast here.

Google News for mobile – “News near you”

(Cross-posted from the Google News blog)

Google News for mobile lets you keep up with the latest news, wherever you are. Today we’re excited to announce a new feature in the U.S. English edition called “News near you” that surfaces news relevant to the city you’re in and surrounding areas.

Location-based news first became available in Google News in 2008, and today there’s a local section for just about any city, state or country in the world with coverage from thousands of sources. We do local news a bit differently, analyzing every word in every story to understand what location the news is about and where the source is located.

Now you can find local news on your smartphone. Here’s an example of a “News near you” mobile section automatically created for someone in Topeka, Kansas:

To use this feature, visit Google News from the browser of your Android smartphone or iPhone. If this is the first time you are visiting Google News on your phone since this feature became available, a pop-up will ask you if you want to share your location. If you say yes, news relevant to your location will appear in a new section called “News near you” which will be added at the bottom of the homepage. You can reorganize the sections later via the personalization page.

You can turn off the feature at any time either by hiding the section in your personalization settings or by adjusting your mobile browser settings. Please visit the Help Center for further details.