Microsoft dons butterfly suit to hawk local search

In an effort to promote its MSN Virtual Earth product, Microsoft has published a tongue-in-cheek video on its Web site featuring one of the product’s team members in a butterfly suit.

Created by the Virtual Earth development team, the video which can be found at www.virtualearthinfo.com, features Virtual Earth Program Manager Steve Lombardi dressed as a multicolored butterfly as he travels around Seattle, supposedly mapping out the city for the Microsoft product.

In the video, Lombardi gets stopped and frisked by a police officer, pleading in his defense, “I’m a butterfly; I got nothing.” He also plays guitar in an alley for tips, and rides around the city in a motorcycle sidecar and on a bicycle all in his quest to map out Seattle’s streets.

Microsoft released Virtual Earth last month, but first announced the product in May.

Though Virtual Earth is similarly named to competitor Google’s Google Earth product, it is more on par with the Google Maps tool than it is with Google Earth. Like Google Maps, Virtual Earth provides both street-map and satellite views of locations and provides driving directions between locations. It also allows users to find specific consumer services around a particular location, such as restaurants and hotels, by typing in keywords.

Google Earth, on the other hand, provides high-resolution, 3D satellite imagery of cities around the world, and allows users to fly virtually from outer space to those cities, where they can zoom in for a closer look. Microsoft does not have a comparable product at this time.

Microsoft is known for using humorous videos the company creates in-house to promote its products and strategies, and they often feature top executives like Chairman and Chief Architect Bill Gates and Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer spoofing themselves in a good-natured way.

In a post on Jupiter Research’s “Microsoft Monitor” Web log Friday, Jupiter Senior Analyst Joe Wilcox called the new video “good fun,” and said he expects Microsoft to continue to take an unorthodox approach to promoting its products.

“Some of it will be stealth, some more nontraditional or viral in nature,” Wilcox wrote of Microsoft’s product marketing. “It’s a good approach.”