Microsoft Archive

Now, if you live in the UK you’ll have noticed it’s been a tad parky! Snow and ice everywhere, people getting stranded, airports closing, trains delayed…..a veritable Snowpocolypse!

Well the guys at MSN have been doing sterling work keeping their bazzilion readers informed of what the heck is going on through their regular weather updates and features, one of which caught my eye today.

This looks like a photo of a boat on a chilly lake right? Well it’s a bit more than that!

Using Deep Zoom technology from Microsoft, they’ve taken hundreds of photos submitted by readers and rendered them using Silverlight in a Deep Zoom experience.

If you start scrolling in towards the boat you start to see small squares:

Those tiny squares are the submitted images all rendering with Silverlight Deep Zoom technology across the web:

Pretty cool eh?!

Check it our for yourself: Winter Storms Deep Zoom or you can compose your own here!

This was me this morning – photo taken by a very sleepy Ashley!

This is what I went out running in at 6.30am

Why??

Because I’m training for a 1/2 Marathon in aid of The National Association for Children of Alcoholics

2 years ago I ran the London Marathon. I’ve now just about recovered, so decided to try a 1/2 Marathon to get back into shape after the best year of my life – 2009 – when I got married to the lovely Ashley and celebrated hard (!) on both sides of the Atlantic.

I’m trying to raise £2,000 this time by running the Lucozade Sport Race Your Pace 1/2 Marathon in Windsor on 28th March.

That’s less than 3 months away……gulp!

The charity I’ve chosen is The National Association for Children of Alcoholics who do really fabulous work in an area of much taboo.

Do visit their website to read some of the children’s stories to understand there are 1000’s of young people out there suffering through no fault of their own.

I work for Microsoft and they guarantee to match any donation, so anything you give will effectively be doubled!

Check out my charity page to donate & thanks in advance:

http://www.justgiving.com/melcarson2

All manner of gadgets and gizmos here at CES in Vegas. Specialling liked getting my hands on the HTC Touch Pro 2 which will be delivered to me in the UK shortly.

Windows Mobile 6.5 looks a great improvement on 6.1 although no one was saying what 7 might bring!

I’m about to rush out the door to catch the last few sessions, so am cheekily linking to a couple of posts I’ve done on the discussions around social media and mobile and one my colleague Ginny has written about gaming.

Social Media Discussed at CES 2010 Digital Hollywood

Getting Connected at CES 2010 & Digital Hollywood – Day 2

Game Power – New Year’s Predictions from Digital Hollywood at CES 2010

Steve Ballmer at CES 2010 plus Digital Hollywood

Check out our Facebook Page and some photos too!

Just got time to post this while in Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show – wrote a post last night on Steve Ballmer’s CES 2010 Keynote

Check out the Facebook Page for a load of photos!

Will post back soon!

BTW the guy in the photo is Ryan Asadorian who not only got inducted to Microsoft with me but is also the Seahawks mascot Blitz!

Well the bows of holly have been de-decked, tree needles are clogging up the vacuum cleaner and what’s left of the brandy butter is going mouldy in the fridge.

We’ve had a fabulous first Christmas as a married couple traipsing about 5,000 miles to see family and friends in the SW of England and then in Seattle.

Highlights were being rescued from an icy ditch near Taunton, being in the BA lounge for 2 hours while others, without such lofty access, queued to be searched before boarding our Boxing Day flight, the overwhelming reception from 30 of Ashley’s close family when we arrived States-side, and spending quality-time with Ashley at the Seahawks game – that Hasslebladder really has to go?!

Now I’m on a New Year Mission to lose some weight and get fit for a 1/2 marathon in Windsor at the end of March. We’re not drinking in January again which is going to be tough as I fly to Las Vegas today for the Consumer Electronics Show…..so we’ll see well how I get on!

I’m aiming to lose 20lbs or one and a half stone, but our friend Nicole Thomas has just started a Diet Blog for MSN UK and she’s aiming to shed FOUR Stone!!!

You really should follow her stuff – she’s a great writer, very funny and acerbic when she wants to be!

You can follow her on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/treefroggirl

Happy New Year to you all and wish me and Nicole luck in becoming half the people we used to be!

Update: Not sure I made it clear below but this is a US release with some content available from some countries thrown in, including the UK. Check out this video for more on Reuters. I think you’ll agree it’s a great showcase for what’s in store but for now outside the US http://www.bing.com/maps is still the de facto experience.

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Not content with sitting back and delivering a simple mapping solution, the guys from Bing have created what is simply an awesome and groundbreaking experience which takes some of the best Microsoft technologies and melds them together.

Check out http://www.bing.com/maps/explore

A simple search for “Trafalgar Square” renders what you’d expect right? – A map!

Just to the left of it though, is some info on the landmark from Wikipedia and some useful weather information but wait….there’s more….

Click on the icon at the bottom of the page and you get four types of view – Automatic, Road, Aerial and the fabulous Birds Eye!

But wait…….there’s even more….

Click on the little guy icon for a choice of views made up of Photosynths made by our community of UK photographic enthusiasts.

But….ok….you guessed it…..there’s a little bit more….

If you go back to the regular results and click under Explore – What’s Nearby – Bing throws up restaurants, bars, hotels and cafes!

Check out and have a play at Kew Gardens – Stonehenge – London Eye

The US takes it a step further with Streetside – take a look around the streets around the Empire State Building!

I was lucky enough to meet Blaise a couple of years ago, and he said this was the vision, but never in my wildest dreams did I think the experience would be this damn good!

Although I’m not strictly IT I ‘spose being into digital marketing and some of the stuff I write about Microsoft counts!

Nice to be in the same company as Steve Clayton!

Shortlist announced on 27th October!

Fingers crossed!

When the Windows Phone launched a couple of weeks ago, so did a new service from Microsoft called My Phone.

I’d been using it for a while in Beta but the update has really got my attention because of some very cool features.

How about if you’ve misplaced your phone at home or left it on a train? Bloody annoying isn’t it!

The way My Phone works is to synch all your photos, docs, texts etc etc with the cloud under your Windows Live ID AND your phone’s last known location:

Here’s what the website looks like now I’m signed in. On the left is a self-explanatory menus of all your phones bits and pieces that have been backed up.

You can see my phone was last backed up last night – you can set it to synch automatically.

Click to find your lost phone and you’re presented with a “See map” option:

Up pops a Bing map with where my phone was when I synched last!

You’ll also notice some premium features being trialled to:

You can have the system ring your phone and it’ll work even if the phone is set to silent so no worries there!

Locking the phone is easy but obviously be careful with Erasing – last resort for that one.

To sign up go to: http://myphone.microsoft.com

More on other features next week!

I’ve been doing search for 9 years. Except for 10 months in 2001 when I was a display advertising traffic manager for BTLooksmart, search engine marketing has been what I do.

From “Submit-a-Site” and BidSmart to managing blue chips at 24/7 and being part of the team that launched Microsoft adCenter in the UK, the keyword has been “search” and I’ve loved every minute of it.

But more recently I’ve been focused on the social media aspect of what our Microsoft Advertising Community team does. We were originally set up in 2006 to help and support advertisers as they signed up to adCenter. We were also on the frontline at events for answering questions about the platform and dealing with all the suggestions on how we might improve.

As the months have gone on, the way we’ve done business – via blogs and forums – has become more and more important. Social Media Marketing is now almost a given where 3 years ago it was seen as a luxury or nice-to-have.

Last October, when our team moved under Mark Young in Global Trade Marketing, he asked why were only doing this kind of work for adCenter? Why not work towards helping our other audiences in research, mobile and display have a direct feedback mechanism to the product & marketing teams that build the tools they use every day?

So in June we launched the Microsoft Advertising Community site! It’s a vibrant hub of social activity in the forums but also on the different blogs and this is where my “role tweak” comes in!

My area of focus is now the Microsoft Advertising Blog – this is where we’ve already on-boarded Young-bean Song and the Institute guys, we’re also talking about in-game advertising, mobile advertising and display.

This will grow, as will our social media foray. We now have @MSAdvertising @adCenterBlog and @adCenterRep and our Facebook Page cranking out tips, tricks and announcements and I’ll be looking to build our following globally to help continue our support of an industry we’re so passionate about.

So it’s not huge news, it’s not a new job, it’s just a change of direction for me from search and PPC to other forms of digital that need the same love, the same explanation/education, the same feedback and evangelism channels that we’ve been giving to adCenter for the past 3 years.

We’re also going great guns on events too – Cannes Lions and Advertising Week were very exciting and successful for our team with tens of thousands of interactions with our Tweets, posts, photos and videos, so it’s not like I’m chained to my desk either!

And it’s also not like I’m not keeping my hand in with search either. With all advertising becoming digital in the next 5 to 10 years, having an understanding of all marketing in the mix is crucial for anyone’s success in this space so Bing it on!!!

Any feedback, and ideas then shoot them through. I’m always listening!