Bing.com releases new Bing Maps features!

Bing.com, Microsoft's recently rebranded search engine, has added some great new features to their maps site.

Click HERE to head over and check it out. Click on the try out the new BETA button on the left side. It will prompt you to install Silverlight, which is similar to Adobe's flash.

Onto the new features that I will briefly cover here

1. StreetSide
2. Photosynth
3. Map Apps

First, StreetSide, which is Microsoft's new equivalent of Google's Street View.  Not many people know, but Microsoft actually was earlier to the Street View implementation that Google was. In early 2006 a public beta of Street Side was live on Microsoft's site.

So onto the new StreetSide, one major feature that differentiates itself from Street View are the smooth transitions as you "walk" down a street.  You don't skip/jump from view to view as you do when moving around on Street View, instead you slide down a street. This seamless transition is really cool to see.

One current drawback is that StreetSide currently does not cover many areas in most cities. I wasn't able to find my apartment, or even Qualcomm Stadium. <-- Home of the San Diego Chargers!!


Next is Photosynth.  This application/site is something that has been available from Microsoft for a while, but finally it has a venue where people will find it more useful.

Photosynth takes multiple pictures of a single object/location and mashes them together or, "synths" them, to get a 3-D view that can be turned around and view from several angles, depending on how many pictures are used.

This feature is now being integrated into Bing maps by having several major landmarks that have been 'Synthed" together.  These landmarks are specially marked on the map.  Something really cool is that hopefully in the future users will be able to submit their own synthed pictures of locations and landmarks through the website for other people to view.

The last feature is the Bing map apps.  These are basically layers that can be added onto your map view to show you anything from nearby attractions and businesses to traffic data and video.

Those are the main new features that were released today. Pretty exciting stuff. Hopefully they continue to release more as they try to build up their search marketshare which is currently sitting at around 10% vs. Google's 70%.

Go check it out!