Earthware Blog

At Earthware, we have believed for some time that Microsoft/Multimap has been disadvantaged vs. Google API which offers embedded maps with free transactions to small mapping clients. With this in mind, we thought we would draw your attention to Multimap’s recently launched embedded mapping product which sees them fighting back Google in offering mapping for free to low volume commercial users.

This new version of the Multimap API allows website owners to embed a customised map into their site taking advantage of Microsoft Virtual Earth’s aerial imagery: all it takes is a single line of HTML code.

The key features are as follows:

· Designed for use by small businesses, personal websites and hobbyists.

· Includes up to 50,000 transactions per year (which Multimap track).

· It takes just as single line of HTML code to embed the map.

· Choice of map styles (TeleAtlas, Ordance Survey, and Barts) and map views (road view or aerial view, including coverage of the US using Microsoft Virtual Earth).

· The HTML code includes four hyperlinks back to Multimap allowing the user to see the location on Multimap with a bigger map, POI’s and business listings; view the location in Bird’s Eye; get directions to the location; get directions from the location.

To embed a map in your site simply:

1. Go to Multimap.

2. Search for your location on Find a Map.

3. Click on “link” on the top right of the map.

4. A box opens; click to accept T’s and C’s.

5. Select to “customise the map” (select the size of the map and move the red circle).

6. Copy and paste the line of HTML code.

Here’s an example of what the map will look like in your site as well as the links back to Multimap for POI’s, Bird’s eye etc:

We believe that Multimap have seen a rapid uptake in these maps into client’s websites. For a list of a few examples please click here.

Before you think this is the panacea of mapping we ought to mention that there are some downsides to the ‘embedded maps’ compared to a licensing for full commercial usage. These being:

• Branding – when using the free mapping, the user leaves the client site to view the data and information within a clearly Multimap branded site. This may mean the user will associate the experience as much with the Multimap brand as they do with your brand.
• Advertising – In the Terms and Conditions, Multimap reserve the right to add advertising to the embedded maps which is controlled solely by them and cannot be removed in the free version. There is always the possibility that the advertising will not fit well with your own site branding or content.
• Usage – the maps cannot be embedded in internal business applications such as BI or CRM systems.

After all, it wouldn’t be reasonable to release an all singing and dancing version with unlimited transations for free – Microsoft and Multimap are businesses after all.

If you want our view, we think this is great news for clients who now have more choices in mapping technologies for low volume usage, or where they want to test out user experiences before dipping into their pockets for significant licence fees for wider usage. A thumbs up from us for Multimap!

Although it seemed that both exhibitor numbers and attendees were down at Agency Expo this year, there was a lot of enthusiasm for those that stopped by at the Microsoft / Multimap stand.

Multimap have recently released a new “embedded” mapping option for users with less than 50,000 transactions per year.  If you want any further information I would recommend contacting Multimap directly via their website www.multimap.com.  We also witnessed many attendees still being “wow”ed by Bird’s Eye imagery which is available through either Multimap or Microsoft Virtual Earth.

We had a really good time explaining how you can get the best of the Virtual Earth platform especially using Earthware’s residential and commercial property mapping products.  We have been delighted to partner with Microsoft and Multimap to give every Estate Agent in the UK (irrespective of size) the opportunity to integrate Virtual Earth into their website and create a highly visual experience for their customers.

Enough of the sales pitch though.  What we also really enjoyed showing was where mapping is really going.  We were delighted to show Earthware’s big first in getting StreetView for 1,000 km of London streets launched before Google.  Please see our other blog article for more details or just click on the following links to have a look for yourself at Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge or even an attack from a giant spider.

We were also delighted to show off what was possible using the new photosynth product released from Microsoft labs.  This can be integrated with mapping to enhance the visual experience for users/customers.  I even had a play myself and so click here (or see the insert below) to see the stand in photosynth.  You might also want to have a look at how Microsoft’s Tim Warr has integrated photosynth into a mapping environment in his blog article.

Neil

Earthware were delighted to be invited to join the Microsoft / Multimap team for the upcoming Agency Expo event.  Microsoft were very keen to involve a partner organisation to explain to potential clients what the full range of possibilities are for their mapping products to drive business opportunities and conversions

Neil Osmond and Lauren Eden from Earthware will both be available over the 14th and 15th October to answer questions and demonstrate the possibilities for mapping.  If you would like to meet with one of us, or any member of the Microsoft / Multimap team, please either contact us beforehand to set up an appointment or drop by the stand.

Attendance of the Agency Expo event is free and you can register at http://www.agencyexpo.co.uk/.

Many of us in the UK are used to seeing MultiMap’s maps on company websites.  They have been more or less the "de facto" web site mapping choice in the UK for years.

I’m sure most of us who are familiar with MultiMap associate them with the very simple, not very exciting, static maps where you have to reload a page to move the map or zoom, as the screen shot shows below:

But how many of you know they actually have a much more up to date mapping API with all the features of a typical web 2.0 mapping solution and a few unique features?

It seems MultiMap have been busy over the last few years. Unfortunately not many of their clients seem to have taken advantage of the new API so most of us have missed out experiencing it for ourselves.

So What’s Different About The MultiMap API?

Multimap have a few unique features to help developers get their mapping projects out of the door much quicker that are not found in many competitors mapping APIs for example:

• Built in browser compatibility testing and handling
  This gives you a quick way to check compatibility and presents a static map solution to non compatible browsers
• Coverage check before panning / zooming
  This allows a developer to check the availability of imagery before allowing the users to pan or zoom – really useful to stop users zooming in too far
• Built-in ‘right mouse click’ context menus
  Allowing developers to quickly create their own custom context menus
• Built-in client side pushpin clustering
  This can be used when you have lots of overlapping icons and has two options for how to display the overlapping pushpins
• Client side filtering of pushpins
  You can filter pushpins quickly and simply using this built in feature
• Map pan limiting
  A much requested feature for Microsoft Virtual Earth is already built into MultiMap’s API allowing developers to keep users within a specific boundary.
• Draggable pushpins
  A built in method to make pushpins draggable
• Tabbed Infoboxes
  This allows you to quickly create tabs within the map popup ‘info’ boxes – very nice for situations where you have lots of data to display
• Innovative web services
  There are a number of webservices you can use with the API including searching by travel distance / duration, searching along routes, carbon emission calculation and loads more.
• Clever imagery selection
  MultiMap’s user interface has some very usable features including previews of mapping styles with roads on and off

Take a good look at all these features and more at the MultiMap API demos page.

What’s MultiMap’s Future?

As some of you may know MultiMap were bought by Microsoft last year who of course have their own mapping API Virtual Earth. What does this mean for MultiMap?

In the short term it means MultiMap now have access to the brilliant imagery including birdseye photography, that Virtual Earth offers. It seems that Microsoft have made a commitment to continue developing the MultiMap API alongside Virtual Earth as an alternative solution and as you can see from its developer features quite an attractive alternative.

However what the long term plan for MultiMap and Virtual Earth is, I don’t think anyone knows quiet yet but it would be great to see some of MultiMap’s innovative features make it into the next Virtual Earth release.

Summing it all up

As you can see MultiMap’s API has some really neat features making it one of the most developer focused mapping API’s available. I encourage you at least to go and have a play with their demos.

Earthware, as specialists in bespoke Virtual Earth implementations, would love to see some of their features get built into Virtual Earth, especially the much requested clustering, pan limiting and coverage data functionality. Also MultiMap’s web services set a real challenge to other providers in terms of functionality that we would love to see ported to Virtual Earth / MapPoint web services.

In order to help with the launch of our new interactive property mapping product, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at what the mapping looks like for a number of the top Estate agency chains and property portals.

Our findings are hardly scientifically robust, and we thought hard about whether to publish these, but given we had done the hard work, we thought it might be interesting.  What we did was take a look at every website (in early March 2008) and look at their maps to find out:

• Do they use mapping at all ?
• Do they have a map that has multiple properties on it (as opposed to a map for just a single property at a time) ?
• What underlying mapping technology each website used (API) ?

and for property portals, we also:

• Examined what data was included in the mapping
• Rated the quality of the mapping (from our point of view)

The Background

I guess we ought to make a few things clear before diving into the analysis.  Firstly, we conducted this research over a week in early March – it is therefore already potentially out of date and any conclusions should be considered with that in mind.  Secondly, any rating or judgement is purely subjective on our point and therefore open to both scrutiny and challenge – we are definitely not aiming to upset our potential customers!

The top 50 Estate Agents were based on a list published by Estate Agency News and the top 20 portals based on a list published by Estate Agency Times in January and February 2008 respective.  We acknowledge the copyright and have offered links in this article to the original articles.

The Analysis

For the full analysis , including tables, ratings etc. please refer to a detailed pdf containing all the analysis.  The commentary below is a summary                   analysis and findings.

Top 20 Portals

Please see the table in the attached pdf for details on each portal.

Observations

We would draw the following observations based on our research:

1. Google Maps leads the way
   Google Maps currently leads the way with nearly 50% of the portals (10 out of the 22) in this list.
2. The UK is seemingly behind in the move to Virtual Earth
   Despite the significant move in the US Real Estate companies across to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth product (mainly due to the Bird’s Eye imagery), the UK portals are lagging behind with only two of the 22 in this list.
3. Mapping still has a long way to go
   Despite technology being core to portal propositions, only 8 of the 22 have a multiple property map.  This would indicate that there is plenty of room for portals to maximise the value they can extract through interactive mapping and improve the experience of their users.

Top 50 Estate Agents

Please see the table in the attached pdf for our view on interactive mapping in the top 50 Estate Agents.

Observations

We would draw the following observations based on our research:

1. Google Maps leads the way
   In a similar manner to the top 20 portals, Google Maps currently leads the way with nearly 50% of the top Estate Agency sites (24 out of the 50).
2. Multimap still has a strong hold
   Unlike the portal list, the UK based Multimap retains a strong presence in the UK Estate Agency market.  Since the buy out by Microsoft, Multimap’s API has been further strengthened by the inclusion of Bird’s Eye imagery from the Virtual Earth API.
3. Mapping still has a long way to go
   In a similar trend to the top portals, only 12 of the 50 have a multiple property map (less than 25%!).  This would indicate that there is plenty of room for Agents to maximise the value they can extract through the use of interactive mapping in their websites.  It certainly might be an area where Agents can positively differentiate their web offerings in the minds of their customers.

Summary

We hope that the time we have taken to look at the interactive mapping for leading websites in the UK residential property market will be of interest.  Should you have any questions about how we conducted the analysis, or would like to chat through any of our conclusions, please contact Neil Osmond at Earthware (neil@earthware.co.uk or 0845 642 9880).