“Virtual Earth gives us everything we need to attract more users to AboutMyPlace—cutting-edge imagery, guaranteed reliability, and great support from Microsoft.”
Peter Brooks-Johnson, Product Director, Rightmove
When the team behind Rightmove decided to launch another site—AboutMyPlace—to give house-hunters local information about the area around properties, they needed a robust mapping technology with cutting-edge imagery. They integrated Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ into AboutMyPlace, and it has since become one of the leading mapping sites in the U.K., attracting millions of visitors every month.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2008
Business Needs
As any estate agent will tell you, one of the most important factors in deciding on a property is location. That’s why the team behind the U.K.’s leading property portal Rightmove decided to launch AboutMyPlace, a Web site where visitors view detailed maps and find information about the area surrounding a property.
To make the new site a success, the team had to find a robust, reliable mapping solution. Peter Brooks-Johnson, Product Director at Rightmove, says: “We pride ourselves on the speed and availability of our site, and AboutMyPlace would be no different. We were looking for a mapping technology with a strong service level agreement (SLA) that guaranteed uptime, even with very heavy traffic. Our users are demanding, so we also needed to find a service with the latest imagery.”
In the past, Rightmove directed users who were looking for more information about a property to a third-party mapping Web site. Says Brooks-Johnson: “This approach worked, but we wanted more control over the maps we used. We needed to put a business agreement in place, and use a technology that would allow us to expand AboutMyPlace and create new features when we wanted to. At the same time, we needed a solution that could support users with slower Internet connections, because 15 per cent of visitors to our site still use modems.”
Interoperability was also very important. Says Brooks-Johnson: “The new mapping technology had to work perfectly with our data management systems. We use software from a number of providers, and we weren’t prepared to implement complex workarounds to integrate the new maps. One of the key ideas behind AboutMyPlace was to offer rich information about locations—such as the schools and house prices in the area—so we also needed a technology that would easily integrate with disparate datasets.”
Solution
After carefully reviewing the market, Rightmove chose to implement the Virtual Earth mapping solution. In 2007, the company’s development team built the first version of AboutMyPlace. “With the Virtual Earth software development kit (SDK), the process was easy. We had the site up and running in just one month,” says Brooks-Johnson.
Making the new mapping technology work with existing systems was also a quick process. “This is the first time we’ve used a software-as-a-service solution, but Virtual Earth works flawlessly with our data management systems. We have a database of more than 15 million properties, but the integration process was easy,” says Brooks-Johnson. The most time-consuming part of the development process was making the new site accessible to all visitors, regardless of the
speed of their Internet connection. Says Brooks-Johnson: “We value all our customers,so we had to make sure people with dial-up modems also had a great experience on
AboutMyPlace. Our developers received really good support from Microsoft to solve this problem.”
AboutMyPlace launched in February 2007. Visitors to the site can view a location with road maps, aerial imagery, or a combination of the two. Because it is based on Virtual Earth technology, the site also offers unique imaging features such as Bird’s Eye View—aerial photographs taken at an isometric angle, which give users views on a location from the north, south, east, and west. Crucially, the development team at Rightmove easily integrated Land Registry data into the site, so users can view recent property sale prices as well as local primary and secondary schools within the same interface.
The Virtual Earth technology is covered by a SLA from Microsoft that guarantees 99.9 per cent uptime. To support the launch of the new site and increase traffic to Rightmove, the company’s development team also created a search plug-in for Windows® Internet Explorer® 7 browser, which allows users to search the Rightmove database directly from their browser window.
Benefits
Using Virtual Earth technology, Rightmove created one of the most popular mapping
sites in the U.K. AboutMyPlace now receives
more than 30 million hits a month, with users enjoying unique features such as Bird’s Eye View.
Brooks-Johnson says: “Virtual Earth gives us everything we need to attract more users to AboutMyPlace—cutting-edge imagery, guaranteed reliability, and great support from Microsoft.” The new search tool for Internet Explorer 7 also helps Rightmove retain users. The company enjoys many benefits using the Microsoft technologies:
Developers used the powerful Virtual Earth SDK to create AboutMyPlace, so the company could quicklybring the site to market.
Visitors return to the site because it offers unique imagery features. “Users love Bird’s Eye View, because it gives them the chance to really explore the area at which they’re looking,” says Brooks-Johnson.
User experience is improved because the Virtual Earth solution is backed up by a comprehensive Microsoft SLA, guaranteeing uptime.
Developers do not waste time integrating the solution with internal data management systems or external datasets, because the Virtual Earth SDK makes these processes simple. They devote their time to higher-value work instead.
The company demonstrates that it is a technological innovator with the Internet Explorer search tool, which also helps to increase user loyalty.
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published July 2008