Bing Maps Adds Streetside

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Microsoft and Google have been going head-to-head lately in a number of areas. From word processing, to mobile operating systems, Google and Microsoft have been trying to compete in what appears to be a corporate one-ups. Microsoft has now added a very Street View-like feature to their Bing Maps.

Streetside, as the Bing Maps Street Map equivelent is called, is powered by Silverlight (as opposed to the AJAX coding that Google Maps uses). The coverage area isn’t great yet, but probably as good as Street View was at this point in its life.

The real neat advantage that Streetside has over Street View, is that instead of the Star Wars-like “jump to lightspeed” effect that Street View has when you jump from frame to frame (for example, when cruising down the street), Streetside does it much differently. Streetside creates 3d models of the buildings and surroundings and (tries) to smoothly slide you down the street.

Now, I tried Streetside and yes – the buildings did glide smoothly but cars, people on the sidewalk, mailboxes, weren’t rendered in 3D and still had the ‘jump to lightspeed’ effect. I don’t know if this is a bug or just a result of the area I was Streetsiding in. Also, in general, Streetside is slower than Street View. I don’t know if this because Streetside is in the news today, or if it has to do with the Silverlight back-end vs. Street View’s AJAX design.

Bing Maps also uses Microsoft’s cool Photosynth tech, where a lot (usually over 100) digital photos are combined together to create one large photograph or panarama. On Bing Maps, they show up as a green icon and usually are around landmarks or something of that nature.

Bing Maps comes with a ton of ‘Map Apps’, which will show up on a new overlay on the map. For example, a ‘Twitter Maps’ app, if activated, will show you were people are twittering from around the world. A ‘Travel Webcam’ App, will show you webcams from popular vacation hotspots.

While Bing Maps isn’t as refined as Google Maps, it has some cool, new features. Let’s hope that Google and Microsoft continue to try to best each other with these cool mapping sites, as us users benefit from more features.