Mash-Ups

The term mashup is used to describe the musical form of combining two or more songs but more recently it has taken on a whole new meaning. The software community has adopted this term to refer to a new wave in software engineering. Software mashups were developed to bring together information (content) coming from completely independent and different applications into one cohesive application. Each time mashup application is invoked the end-user receives new content. A typical example is the use of map data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data from Craigslist to create a mashup that provides visual representation of a real estate market (HousingMaps.com). Mash-ups have become so popular that within the past couple of years that sites have been dedicated to the creation of software mashups. Even better there is a Mashup Camp, which first took place in Silicon Valley in February 2006 where participants learn and exchange views about their mashup applications.

Applicability of software mashup is almost unlimited. For example, ChicagoCrime, took police data for crime incidents and this data on street maps from Google Maps. Now, if am person was planning to visit an area she/he doesn’t know, it is possible to check in advance whether it is a safe place. A relevant probable mash-up for students, could feature the integration of data from the evaluations of professors by students with course sequencing, creating a sort of “map” of good professor. This map would allow students to select his/her courses maximizing the chances of being taught by a professor perceived by the students to be a “good one”. The problem that could arise with this new technology could be related to bringing together disparity of data sources and presenting it in a very personal context. For example combining Facebook data with student’s class list could result in repository of potentially very personal information about individuals that wasn’t authorized by them. Even though this information is public it is not meant to be publicized. It is this kind of privacy breach where mash-ups should become a concern.

For personal users, mashups phenomenon is allowing them the opportunity to turn their mashups into a career. For example, Dom Ramsey, who developed a successful photo-sharing/photo-blogging site at Fotothing.com. What started as a hobby for him turned into a profitable venture when he sold it. As personal users experiment to find out what the different uses for mashups are, organizations can start to view them as a growing asset. Mashups allow companies to compile the information from multiple sources in order to provide a new insight into operations or a specific market. This allows for a much more customized user system. "What makes mashups really different is that you don't need to be a rocket scientist…" The ease needed to create mashups allows for organizations to tap into the vast pool of people who are creative and do not necessarily need to have software engineering background. Mash-ups will become an opportunity for organizations and personal users alike to create customized software, which can satisfy their needs.

References:

Hinchcliffe, Dion. Is IBM making enterprise mashups respectable? ZDNet,
June 18th, 2006. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=49

Mashup Feed. http://www.mashupfeed.com/

Mashup (web application hybrid). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

Mills, Elinor. Mapping a revolution with 'mashups'. CNET News.com,
November 17, 2005. http://www.news.com/2009-1025-5944608.html

Schofield, Jack. It's all in the mix. The Guardian, February 2 2006.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2006/feb/02/web20.internet

Software Mashup of the Day. Mashups.com.
http://www.mashups.com/softmotd.htm