Multimap

Use Multimap from bing (multimap.com) to get driving directions, street maps, and locations.

Multimap for maps

Using Multimap to get a map is very easy. Go to the Multimap home page and type in an address, town, or postcode. After clicking the Find button, you are shown the location in a map of the area.

Multimap also gives you free web based facilities for finding driving directions. 

The next section considers alternatives to Multimap, but bear in mind that Multimap from bing (multimap.com) is difficult to beat for location-based search. A pioneer in this area, Multimap provides great help for finding restaurants, petrol stations, and most other things from your mobile phone or computer.

Multimap alternatives

There are many Multimap alternatives worth considering, including Google Maps, MapQuest and Yahoo Maps

Many of Multimap's competitors offer different and additional features. For instance, Google Maps offers draggable driving directions.

On the other hand, Multimap has specific features that distinguish it from the rest of the pack, including:

• Switchability between different kinds of maps, including Ordnance Survey.
• Multimap UK integration with Multimap Europe.
• Details of local features, including transport links and Wikipedia markers to take you immediately to further information about a place.
• Aerial views - aerial photographs that provide a useful addition to schematic map views. 

Sites complementing Multimap.com include:

• Expedia - extra travel information.
• Maps.alot - a free maps toolbar.

In summary, Multimap is great for providing driving directions and basic maps, but other sites may provide additional features for your particular needs. So keep on experimenting with Multimap and its alternatives until you find the mapping software that is an exact fit for your particular needs. And keep on re-checking as things change fast in this field.

Multimap facts

• Multimap attracted more than 4 million UK users in November 2007 according to Nielsen NetRatings.
• Amongst mapping companies, only Google Maps attracts more users in the UK than Multimap.
• Many big companies use Multimap maps on their web sites, including AA, Ford, Royal Mail and Virgin.
• Sony's online store locator uses Multimap maps to show European customers where they can find photo-printing kiosks.
• Multimap is a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, and part of Microsoft Virtual Earth and Microsoft Search teams in the Microsoft Online Services Group. 

Multimap news

10/7/9 Multimap recently moved back to using basic maps. These are  good for old computers, slow connections, and people just wanting faster maps.

21/1/9 If you are venturing into the great outdoors Multimap basic maps are not much use, except for getting you to the starting point. Fortunately, Multimap comes with Ordnance Survey maps. Multimap have offered the1:50k Landranger maps for somne time. Now they offer 1:25k Explorer maps as well, giving more detail, depth and accuracy.

29/8/8 Mary Spence (president of the British Cartographic Society) argues that online mapping sites are “wiping out history”. Multimap have pledged to  invest effort in providing maps to keep history alive. They continue to make Ordnance Survey maps part of their offering, as well as older street maps of historical interest (e.g., Collins Bartholomew London street maps.)

Multimap disambiguation

If you do a Google search for "Multimap" you will see several pages which have nothing to do with maps at all. You may see pages with titles like Multimap C++ reference or Multimap <Key, Data>. This is because Multimap is also the name of a programming construct, so you will find a lot of (very!) technical pages popping up in your search results. But be careful not to dismiss all technical looking pages out of hand. For instance, pages entitled Multimap API... will, most likely, be about Multimap maps. These are likely to be be about the more technical aspects of using Multimap, but may have some useful information about the advanced features of the Multimap mapping software. 

This is all the average map user needs to know about disambiguating their search results, but if you are curious about what Multimap means to programmers and mathematicians, then read on...

In mathematics the most general kind of map is given by a series of keys and values, where the keys are said to be mapped on to values. So a list of names and phone numbers in a telephone directory is said to show a mapping from names (keys) to phone numbers (values). In a telephone directory some people might have multiple phone numbers. To stress this "multiple" aspect of telephone directories it is said to be an example of, not just a Map, but a Multimap.