What can you do with your Windows Live ID? : #3 Store collections of geographical points
[In this series of blog entries I’ll be exploring what else you can do with your Windows Live ID other than access Windows Live products and services. See the complete list here.]
Live Maps has a great feature called Collections which enables you to store -using your Windows Live ID- collections of geographical points, routes and shapes so that you can get to them later or even share them with your friends.
For example, I have a collection that keeps track of all the scuba dives that I have completed:
I also keep a collection which has a point on it for everywhere I’ve ever lived along with the dates. You never know when you’re going to need to know that stuff and its not that easy to remember!
By the way, you can browse through collections that other people have stored and shared at http://backofmyhand.live.com/. Check out Natural Wonders of the World for example.
-Jamie
Jamie Thomson 
I wish there was an option to share your collections on the What’s New Feed.
Michael
January 11, 2009 at 4:05 pm
yeah, good idea that Michael. Tht’s the sort of thing that should be making it in there.
Jamie
January 11, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I have been back to South Africa for the past 4 yours and while Live Maps is extremely useful on my UK trips, it is completely useless for us down here. No street data and 5 year old satellite views.
Lebohang
January 11, 2009 at 5:44 pm
I love collections – use them all the time – just wish I could access them from my mobile too either over the web or with Windows Live Search.
Ian
January 11, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Ian,I hear ya! In the US version of Live Search for Mobile you CAN access collections but you can’t specifically access YOUR collections. I have asked the Live Search for Mobile team (many times) to start leveraging LiveID but every time they release a new version I get the same disappointment.-Jamie
Jamie
January 11, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Thanks Kip – that’s a neat trick, and worked great when I just tried it. Shame that we have to switch to US settings to even see the collections option though; not sure why that would not be enabled for the UK. I move between thinking MS have a master-plan for Mobile that will be revealed in all it’s glory once all the parts are knitted together, and thinking that it is a disjointed hopeless mess that consumers will find more and more frustrating…
Ian
January 12, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Can’t wait to try this Jamie. This makes me think of geo-tagging which I’ve suggested for Live Photos. Not sure of all the benefits, but I’d like to use the coordinates of my vacation photos to jump off to Live Maps to see precisely where that lovely Romanesque church was in Bourgogne. With some time I could come up with other uses including some that would benefit others when I share my images and they’re doing research or planning a trip.
Brien
February 12, 2009 at 10:08 pm