I don’t really know a whole lot about mashups, but I have found some pretty interesting resources that help to explain it. I decided to look up the term on Wikipedia and found that there a variety of different mashups but they ultimately fall into one of four categories: Digital, Music, Video and Web Application Hybrid. There are also Business and/or Entrepreneur mashups, but they tend to be a more recent category.
Web Application Hybrid or API is the type of mashup that I’m currently researching. Unfortunately, Wikipedia’s definition doesn’t provide much information on its exact term. Although it does provide some examples, such as using Google Maps to pin point the location of available houses for a real estate agency.
Essentially the use of mashups can allow the average Internet user the ability to integrate different web based services into one place without having to fully understand coding. (To a certain extent.)
However there are some mashup editors, such as, Google Mashups that require at least a basic understanding of coding to use. Some other well known mashup editors are Yahoo Pipes and Microsoft Popfly. Popfly emphasizes its ease of use without having to use code, through a graphical editor. I tried to learn more about using Popfly through there site and I learned two things: 1) they started a new game creator mashup which looks pretty cool and 2) in order to view the video tutorial I have to get Silverlight (which is Microsoft’s version of Flash). It wouldn’t open on my computer, because currently as I type this post I’m on my Mac laptop. I may try it out on my PC later. I tried looking at Yahoo Pipes How To Video and nothing came up. I’m starting to wonder if there are any Mac Friendly mashup editors, or if I need to switch to my PC to use a mashup. It still seems that the most popular three (Popfly aside) requiring understanding of coding to use properly.
Aside from that I did find an interesting article in regards to Microsoft and its mashup editor, Popfly, called: Mashups are Breaking the Mold at Microsoft.
“Compared with its tenacious Internet competitors like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft is generally still viewed as being more of the shrink-wrapped software generation than the Web 2.0 world. … The Popfly programmers, however, have gone a step further in an effort to design a tool that is intended for a generation of Web users who are familiar with the Internet but are not skilled programmers.”
And of course, with every new technology there is someone trying to make a profit from it. As noted by Dion Hinchcliff, from his article Mashups Turn Into an Industry as Offerings Mature:
“One thing is now clear in this burgeoning new industry; that there is genuine interest in being a leading provider of enterprise mashup tools as organizations begin getting serious about applying them…(mashups as an industry) is expected to grow into a $700 million a year industry sector by 2013, or about 1% of the entire software industry, depending on how you define mashups and which types of tools are included.”
I’m not saying that everything in this life should be free (although some would argue otherwise) placing a value on something does help to moderate its quality to a certain extent. The article is an interesting read and mainly focuses on the business aesthetics of using mashups, but it also provides some good links to other lesser known Mashup Editors. He also posted brief descriptions of each mashup listed.
I found one mashup editor that looked interesting called AlchemyPoint from Orchestr8. (Found it on Wikipedia.) For people who use Facebook and Myspace it shows a tutorial on how to combine the search engines from both sites that enables the user to search both sites within one. Seems like a pretty useful tool for someone who does quite a bit of social networking.
Now that I have a better understanding of what mashups are I think that they can provide an interesting and unique way of sharing information with prospective clients, as well as sharing the information publicly across the Internet. The idea of using Google Maps to pin point available real estate sounds like a great tool if you are looking to buy a house. I’ll have to do some research as to whether or not that application is available to renters too. Of course I could always use my newfound knowledge of mashups to create one for myself. Essentially using mashups comes down to manipulation of readily accessible web based services to create something useful for yourself or to share your creation publicly.
Posted by jdbosley on May 19, 2008 at 9:01 AM
I get frustrated with the incompatibility between PC and MAC sometimes. I use them both regularly and dislike having to switch computers sometimes simply to watch a video or open a file. MAC incorporating the office suite was a big step towards compatibility, hopefully we will see more of this in the future. I have not finished my research on mashups yet but I wanted to share http://www.housingmaps.com/ with you. It is a mashup between craigslist.com’s realty section and Google maps and it shows rental properties. For more mashups, check out http://www.programmableweb.com/mashups. It is basically a mashup directory which you can search through based on category. They say that there is over 3,000 mashups listed and they are adding about 3 more every day.
Posted by Lindsey on May 20, 2008 at 2:11 PM
Did you ever find a mashup editor that worked for Macs? I saw this article that talked about Google Gears that works on multiple platforms http://mashable.com/2007/05/30/google-gears/. The article says, “Gears works across all platforms: Macs, Windows, and Linux with Firefox or IE…” I imagine you have to be a good programmer to use it. It will be interesting to see what kinds of mashups people come up with, and hopefully we will learn how to develop these ourselves.
Posted by jdbosley on May 21, 2008 at 5:09 PM
yeah, the crime statistics in my area are really not too bad, was kind of exaggerating that one a bit. i am going to have a look at Google Gears and see what they have going on there.