Mashups

Posted by Kenneth Ronkowitz on


Mashups are another example of Web 2.0. The term comes from the musical genre of songs by the same name that consist entirely of parts of other songs. A mashup online is a web application hybrid. It's a website or web application that combines content from more than one source. It attempts to combine
content from more than one source into an integrated experience.

One place to find mashups is at programmableweb.com which currently lists more than 450 mashups.

Content used in mashups is typically from a third party via a public interface or API (Application Programming Interface), a web feed (e.g. RSS or Atom) and JavaScript.

Many people are experimenting with mashups using eBay, Amazon, Google, and Yahoos APIs.

SAMPLES:

homepricemaps.com - mashes Google maps with information of the prices of home sales to create maps with the home sales in geographic areas.

CelebSoup mixes a variety of sites - at http://www.celebsoup.com/New_York_Yankees.html a page mashes books, news, pictures, eBay, DVDs, music, apparel, online video and links all about the NY Yankees. Since all the content is updated and generated by third parties (eBay, Amazon, Yahoo etc.), the page's host does not have to update the page.

darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk - is a UK zoology site that is pulling data from multiple sources on-the-fly to create species info pages (with this link, it's the Golden Eagle)

Do the third parties like these mashups? Yes. It drives business to their sites, which is why they are providing ways of linking easily to them.

Tech commentator Larry Magid speaks with three mashup site pioneers in this episode of the IT Conversations show "Larry's World."

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