Virtual Earth/Live Search Maps are much more than just mapping, location and search services. Microsoft is in fact delivering a complete platform but, in this context, Rich Internet Applications are not the only thing that the Redmond company aims to attract. In fact, Live Search maps, and Virtual Earth are also excellent mediums to serve advertising.

According to Virtual Earth Technical Evangelist Chris Pendleton, there are three types of advertising that Microsoft can integrate into Virtual Earth/Live Search Maps, namely Highlighted Listings, Sponsored Listings and Brand Finder. The first is available via orders sent to the Virtual Earth platform licensing group, while the remaining pair is intimately connected with the Live Search maps experience.

"Highlighted Listings allows for additional exposure of your brand through Live Search Maps without tampering with our algorithm to produce the most relevant user results," Pendleton revealed. "The program has been hugely successful [...]. You can package this with your Virtual Earth licensing agreement. If you're a current customer (or not a customer, but want to be one) you can sign up for Highlighted Listings and at the same time use Virtual Earth's API for your applications! It's a great user experience to be redirected from our Live Search Maps consumer site to a site that's using the same map interface they just left."

Via Highlighted Listings, Microsoft is essentially introducing branded icons on top of the maps in Virtual Earth, pointing to certain locations chosen by the advertisers. This means that any location can stand out of the rest with a personalized icon, rather than just sport an orange push pin. Pendleton indicated that the branded icons could be used to redirect visitors to an advertiser's website. Sponsored Listings functions a tad different.

"The simplest advertising we have on Live Search Maps is Sponsored Listings from Yellow Pages.com. Once you get on their ad platform, you will just appear on Live Search Maps in the text-based ads. Pretty straightforward," Pendleton added.

In contrast to the first two Virtual Earth advertising models, Brand Finder is still evolving. Pendleton noted that Microsoft was yet to build a full scale business model around the advertising option, but this is not to say that implementations are not already a part of the platform. With Brand Finder, the generic icon of a location delivers a pop-up screen or rollover with additional information.