Cool! Create Heat Maps With Bing & "Relevant" iPhone App Results Now Visible on Bing Mobile Search Results Pages

A busy week at Bing.

A couple of days ago we pointed out that Bing had updated their mobile site (m.bing.com) with several new features including an option to view a map and directions simultaneously.

Today, two more new features from Bing.

1.  Info Visualization: “New Heat Map Creator app makes heat maps easy” (via Bing Blog)

The Heat Map Creator allows you to easily create heat maps that can be cut and pasted into a presentation or report. As a reminder, heat maps (or density maps) are maps that use color gradients to show data/attribute density. Heat maps are becoming quite popular because they provide compelling visualization without requiring geographic region data (polygons) to be acquired and maintained. Check out the app to see some examples of just how useful and informative heat maps can be.

The Heat Map Creator allows you to produce a heat map by importing up to 25,000 locations (latitude and longitude) and an optional numeric value from your data, like monthly sales (imported via a CSV file). From there, you can easily print screen and capture the image for a presentation or document.

2 .Bing Mobile To Feature iPhone Apps In Search Results (by Matt McGee, Search Engine Land)

Bing is now showing relevant app download links right in the search results of Bing’s iPhone app and mobile browser.

Where this might be helpful is in cases when the searcher isn’t aware that there’s an iPhone app related to a search result. (The iPhone app store has its own search engine, but that generally works best when you know what app you want to download.)

At the same time, iPhone app links will also show up on specific app-related searches like “top iPhone apps,” “download Fruit Ninja” and so forth.

Bing also offers a “visual search” (browse would be more accurate) interface to find apps*** and all sorts of other info. From astronauts to popular movies to Lady GaGa Outfits. This beta has been around for a couple of years and we continue to find it an interesting way to find info. Give it a go!

Filed under: Data Files, Maps, Resources