Microsoft does the A9 thing

At this morning’s “Search Pundits” session at SES, the inimitable Robert Scoble let slip (ok, so he “announced”) that Microsoft is following A9’s lead and taking street-level photos — searchable, of course — of U.S. cities. Already, he said, the company’s photo-taking van has snapped 10 million images around Seattle and “about the same number” in San Francisco. These images should be accessible by the end of the day today, Scoble said. (Actually, they are up now.) This is part of the company’s Virtual Earth initiative. Like Amazon’s similar functionality on A9, this has interesting possibilities for local marketers who want to ensure their retail location is easily spotted.

See the Channel 9 entry about the photo-taking.