This could be Bing’s last hurrah for the year, as Microsoft launches Bing Maps in beta while at the same time announces a new Bing mobile app, a new toolbar and a visual search experience in the coming days.  While all these new features seem pretty exciting, Bing Maps beta which runs on Microsoft’s Silverlight looks to be the most promising.

Feature-rich Bing Maps

Bing Maps is obviously Microsoft’s latest effort to take on one of Google’s most successful product – Google Maps.  Bing combines Streetside and Photosynth imaging technologies to provide a seamless mapping experience for users the same way that Google Maps does. Interestingly, Bing maps delivers something which Google Maps don’t have – integration of  third party applications including Twitter Maps, Hyperlocal mapping and Nearby Location service. Other features of Bing Maps include Streetside imagery (Google Street View?)

Bing’s New Mobile Apps

In addition to Maps, Bing is also rolling out a new mobile application which promises the following mobile features – voice-enabled search, improved auto-locate feature for showing your current location and accessing maps, driving directions and traffic information, locate and bookmark specific local business locations, and a facility to save search results into a list for easy access later on.

Bing Toolbar Improved plus New Visual Search Experience

For Firefox and IE users, Bing Toolbar has been greatly improved with the following features – search assist, browse plus and no-fail cash detector which helps you find Bing Cashback deal on a product-related search.

In addition to the Bing toolbar, Bing is also integrating Facebook and Twitter feeds to enable users to find status updates of friends and followers on those two social networks. These updates can be sorted through various ways including upcoming birthdays.

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Microsoft Announces Bing Maps, Mobile App, Toolbar and Visual Search

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4. Google Trounces Yahoo, Bing In Mobile Search Report