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Microsoft Bing Maps to feature content from geolocation app Foursquare

By | March 26, 2010, 10:13am PDT

Summary: Microsoft has some new ammunition in its battle against rival Google: geolocation service Foursquare.

Microsoft has some new ammunition in its battle against rival Google: geolocation service Foursquare.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company’s Bing Maps tool will soon feature tips and comments from the burgeoning mobile service, which has taken off in popularity among smartphone-enabled urban users on the East Coast for its addictive mix of information and competition.

(For the uninitiated, you can “check-in” at locations around you and, over time, pick up badges and deals rewarding certain activity. The service broadcasts your location to an inner circle of friends, who do the same in return.)

The Bing integration won’t broadcast your location on Maps, but will surface the tips that Foursquare users attach to venues. (Example: I left the following tip for Letterman’s Diner in Kutztown, Pennsylvania: “Be advised: the big portions get bigger as the cook gets hungrier.”)

Basically, it’s much like Yelp integration with Google.

Naturally, the tool will use Silverlight to pull in Foursquare content to Bing Maps.

It will be launched in the spring.

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Andrew J. Nusca is editor of ZDNet and SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

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MS is keeping Bing Maps updated with new technology. The
Maps are updated for 2009-2010 - " BC Canada " On the
other hand Google Maps are out of date. Last update was
years ago. Anyone in the Vancouver area should always use
Bing Maps.

If Google would stop burning the candle on both ends. Get
out of the Cell market and stick to something you know.

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