The second major release of Live Maps for China is out and can be accessed at http://ditu.live.com. Congrats to our engineering team in China for getting this big update out - it represents many months of coding and brings some great improvements to map surfers in China. It also brings an API for developers and a localized SDK. Qingsong is a Program Manager on the maps team in Beijing and has this rundown on the release.
I am pleased to announce that VE China ‘Goliath” release is live on http://ditu.live.com. Here is a list of the new and improved areas-
- VE China API for developers, with VE China SDK documentation on Chinese MSDN.
- Pinyin support for map search query
- Business photos on the details page
- Transit - Improved route quality; better estimation of trip time; refreshed transit data for all 11 cities.
- Geocoding - Support Pinyin correction; geocoding match rate greatly improved
- New process for monthly data update leading to more timely and accurate maps and Business listings
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Marie Thirlwall, Product Manager for Microsoft in the UK, sent me some information about MultiMap and how starting today (hopefully by the time you are reading this) UK visitors to MSN.com who are looking for maps and directions will be served by MultiMap. Folks who visit maps.live.com will continue to get the same mapping experience they enjoy today. Choice is good! By the way, check out this review comparing 7 mapping/trip planners in the UK in which MultiMap received top marks-
The hugely customizable routes were the only ones to match our sat-nav and offered lots of information, including weather conditions and public transport options. The satellite and standard map facilities impressed, and route calculation was super-fast.
Back to the announcement at hand, here are all the details from Marie:
We recently announced the integration of Multimap into Live Search in the UK and will start to route users directly to the Multimap service from MSN UK and Live.com from 9th May.
This release is part of our longer term consumer strategy to have one mapping and local search site in the UK, integrating the best of both Multimap and Virtual Earth (Live Search Maps) technologies. The management and development teams of Microsoft and Multimap are working collaboratively, with a common vision bringing localized products to market faster. Given that Multimap resonates successfully with UK consumers serving over 45% of the UK mapping audience, building on this brand is the right strategic direction.
We recognize, however, that we must continue to offer users a choice of services while we complete the integration of all Virtual Earth features into the Multimap site. We are therefore maintaining the Live Search Maps UK site and users can still access this at http://maps.live.com to use favourite features such as Windows Live Collections and 3D maps. Powerful VE Aerial and Bird’s Eye imagery has been integrated into the Multimap site to give consumers the broadest array of map styles on the market today.
Additionally, we are going to provide prominent signposting to Live Search Maps UK from the Multimap site for those who are redirected there. All Live Search and MSN UK mapping traffic through ‘Maps’ links will be redirected to www.multimap.com but any shared Collections links will not.
Developers and businesses that have invested in the Virtual Earth technology are unaffected by the redirection of our Live Search Maps and MSN mapping traffic to Multimap. We will continue to support both technology platforms and expect to offer an expanded set of opportunities and features over time.
We thank our users for the feedback and passion they have shared so far as we continue to evolve our local and mapping sites in the UK. We encourage you to try out these sites for yourselves.
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