Apparently food carts are a very big deal in Portland, Oregon. So big in fact that Microsoft has developed a new mapping layer that allows searchers to locate these carts in the Bing Maps service. This new layer is joining the ranks of other food cart finders including a maps layer from FoodCartsPortland.com on Google Maps, and Yelp’s “food stands” business tag.
The carts are mapped out in the same way as all locations on the maps (like viewing cart hours, photos, menus, and user reviews based on what is made available by the business), however these carts all got a spork icon to distinguish them as food carts. Any cart with a red spork is a Portland Monthly Magazine pick and provides you with additional information on that particular food cart (including a link to the magazine review site specifically for food carts).
Bing has also linked each cart to it’s individual Twitter feed (granted that it has one) and incorporated check-ins on Foursquare so now you can see how many people are visiting a particular location. Searches can further be filtered by editorial reviews of the carts.
