Bing to Add Hyperlocal Blogs In Maps
Love, love, love this: At the ILM ‘09 conference Wednesday, Bing showed off some of its new local/maps toys, including something called Local Lens — a layer of hyperlocal blog content that can be displayed on Bing Maps.
(you can click for a larger version)
The Bing Maps demo of this only covers 10 major cities right now, and since I’m not at the conference, I don’t know what they said about full U.S. coverage (or not). I also don’t know anything about what blogs are included, nor how to add your blog for inclusion. Hopefully all that will be known in time. For now, I do like what I see:
- Unique neighborhoods fade-in to view as your mouse moves across the map.
- Blog posts appear as markers on the map.
- Clicking a marker shows a teaser of the post(s).
- Clicking the teaser loads more of the blog content in the left column, next to the map. (This is the step I don’t like; clicking the teaser should lead straight to the actual blog post.)
- Clicking in the left column then takes you to the actual blog post.
There are also some cool and subtle design/display things I like, but they’re hard to explain. Overall, it’s a cool implementation, and when Local Lens moves from this beta version to the real Bing Maps, it’ll be the first time a major search engine highlights hyperlocal blog content. Well done, Bing.
How to Test Local Lens
Oh, you want to play with this yourself? Sure. Here are the instructions, courtesy of Lost Remote:
- Go to Bing Maps
- Click the “Try It Now” link under “Beta” on the left
- Click the arrow at the bottom of the left column to see the available apps
- On the next screen, choose “Local Lens”
Your turn: Try it out and share your comments below. I’ll see if I can get someone from Bing to have a look at your feedback, and maybe talk more in depth about Local Lens.
CNN Invests in Outside.in
Every bit as important as the recent news that MSNBC had purchased Everyblock.com is today’s news that CNN has bought a stake in Outside.in, the hyperlocal content aggregator that I’ve written about here on HLB countless times.
Today’s news makes this CNN headline from last May borderline prescient:
Indeed, it may be. There’s plenty of evidence: CNN invests in Outside.in … MSNBC buys Everyblock.com … the New York Times has launched its hyperlocal effort called “The Local” … AOL has its hyperlocal project called Patch … the Huffington Post is getting into hyperlocal blogging … the Seattle Times is collaborating with hyperlocal blogs … Fisher launched 43 hyperlocal sites in Seattle and is expanding that model in other areas … the Guardian (UK) is starting a hyperlocal news network … other UK newspapers are also going hyperlocal … and so on and so forth.
What’s It Mean for Hyperlocal Bloggers
Generally speaking: The attention on what you’re doing is only going to grow. Sure, there will always be detractors and some who have no respect for what you’re doing. Ignore them. Now is the best time to start a local blog, or to keep growing what you’ve already started.
More specifically: If CNN is going to feature feeds on its web site from Outside.in, as the WSJ says it will, you better make sure your blog is in Outside.in’s system. You can do that by signing up (for free) for Outside.in’s GeoToolkit.
Go do it!
Update, December 8: The official news release explains how Outside.in content will be integrated with CNN:
“As part of its investment, CNN Worldwide entered into a concurrent multi-year deal to use the Outside.in for Publishers aggregation and curation platform to power hyperlocal news across all of CNN.com and its related properties. The first implementations are expected to be completed in Q1 of 2010.”
(If you’re interested in reading more about the CNN/Outside.in news, there’s discussion on Techmeme.)
Turn Your Blog Into a Newspaper with Zinepal
Think of all the people in your neighborhood/town that are sitting in a doctor’s office reading magazines every day. Or sitting in the waiting room at the car repair shop. Or at the salon. Wouldn’t it be great if they were reading your blog instead of Ladies Home Journal or Sports Illustrated?
They can be reading your blog — without needing a laptop or smartphone — thanks to Zinepal.com, a service that takes any online content and turns it into a fairly customizable and printable publication. Before looking at how it works, let me show you what the final product looks like: Read more
West Seattle Blog makes Google Zeitgeist
Every December, Google (and the other main search engines) release their lists of the top search terms that people have used during the year. Google went so far this year as to break down some “popular searches unique to specific U.S. cities” in a bunch of major cities … including Seattle.
And would you look at the No. 5 query according to Google during 2009 in Seattle:
Yep, the West Seattle Blog made the list. Very cool. (Yes, I know there are imperfections when trying to trace searches back to their originating city; get over it. This is cool to see.) I’m not familiar enough with local blog names elsewhere in the country, so not sure if any others are included in the individual city lists. Leave a comment if you recognize one.
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