Microsoft launched a new Silverlight-powered Bing Maps experience into beta, which offered a myriad of new features including powerful visualisation that stitches together images contributed by users (yes, clients’ favourite “UGC”) into 3D photo collages, via their Photosynth technology.

Both Microsoft and Google are experimenting with a variety of tools that make hunting for locations far more immersive, and they’ve a new Application Gallery that enables developers to include their own information on a map. If they are able to open the platform up to more developers (and hopefully for the platform to come to our shores soon), we are then able to truly realise the vision of making maps more like a video game than an Atlas utility. Imaging a virtual walkthrough of places you have never been before (possibly an idea for tourism boards), leveraging on local insights for specific data ranging from tweets, blog posts, local lens, videos, and even real time vodcasts.

While we’re sure Bing will continue to open up the technology to developers and to further enhance its visualisation properties, one can only hope they also improve the loading speed (if only its available here and we have the New Generation Broadband to overcome this challenge), the usability with the influx of functionalities, and of course for a growing pool of hungry photography prosumers to contribute colour vibrant pictures for massive stitching.

Explore Bing Map now: