Apr 20, 2012 at 5:45pm ET by Greg Sterling

Analyst firm BIA/Kelsey has projected that by 2015 there will be more local searches coming from smartphones than PCs in the US. It's a bold prediction and one that has logical merit: smartphone search volumes are growing faster than search on the PC. While local search is at least 20 percent of total queries on the PC (per Google) it's at least 40 percent of smartphone queries, also according to Google. Mobile vs. PC Local Search Volumes (BIA/Kelsey Forecast) Source: BIA/Kelsey (2012) In some categories such as restaurants and travel, mobile searches represent 15 - 20 percent [...]

Microsoft Makes Venue Maps More Visible On Bing

Apr 17, 2012 at 9:49am ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft has introduced a number of improvements to Bing Maps, chief among which is making "venue maps" more obvious. Microsoft says there are roughly 900 venue/interior maps on Bing focused primarily on "malls, airports, casinos and shopping districts." Google has a similar initiative but it's focused on Google Maps for Android for the time being. Below is a comparison of Bing's Mall of America interior map and Google Map's version of the same site (the Android version offers the interior the PC version does not): Clearly the Bing experience above is more desirable. In New York [...]

Bing Maps Updates Map Pins, Adds Drag & Drop Routes & More

Mar 15, 2012 at 9:40am ET by Barry Schwartz

The Bing Maps Blog announced several enhancements to Bing Maps. In summary, the changes include: A refresh to the Pushpin buttons and Popup menu Transit symbols and icons were improved Added sharing options to transit directions Ability to now drag to modify your route The explore venue maps option is easier to find The most visible change is the first, the pushbuttons and popup menu changes. The blue pushpins are standard search results in the maps, the orange pushpins are results you saved to your maps. When you hover your mouse over a pushpin, you see the name of the loc [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local

Microsoft’s Photosynth App Goes Worldwide After 6 Million US Downloads

Mar 12, 2012 at 2:59pm ET by Matt McGee

Microsoft's Photosynth iOS app, which has been available to US users for almost a year, is now available worldwide and includes a couple updates. In its blog post today, Microsoft says the app has passed six million downloads since its US-only launch last April. The app is now in version 1.1.3 and is available to iOS users around the world. It includes performance tweaks specifically for iOS5 users and adds Twitter sharing, too. Previously, photo panoramas could be shared on Bing Maps and Facebook. If you're not familiar with Photosynth, it's an underrated product that makes it almos [...]

Bing Testing New, Google-y Local Search Results

Mar 1, 2012 at 1:02pm ET by Matt McGee

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the folks at Bing Local are paying Google a very nice compliment with a new display for local search results that looks quite a bit like what Google often shows. As first spotted by BrightLocal.com, Bing's new local search results no longer consistently show a "pack" of businesses listings and map at the top of the page, above all of the regular organic links. Instead, with the new display, Bing shows a mix of local results: The "pack" of listings may appear anywhere in the search results, not just at the top of the page. The map appears [...]

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