Mashup - an interesting gift of Web 2.0 movement

Mashups allow people to express endless creativity by "connecting" two or more web applications together. This term has been mentioned for a long time but is now more focused on by technology.

Mashup clearly shows Web 2.0's "personalization of information" feature. For example, a programmer can create a website to share his or her own photos and videos when combining two services YouTube and Flickr. Or users can "mix" data on traffic conditions in Hanoi with Google Maps to map frequently-traffic points in the city .

Therefore, mashups are always rated as "elite members" of the second generation web (Web 2.0). According to Wikipedia's online dictionary, mashups are defined as a tool capable of retrieving information from various data sources to create a unique and completely new integrated service.

The term mashup comes from pop music, just producing a new song by mixing many pieces together. Users do not need to be technically knowledgeable but just need to build services based on application programming interfaces available such as Google, Amazon, Flickr .

The proportion of API application interfaces used to create the most mashups.
Source: Programmable

However, making easy mashups will also bring certain risks. Analysts believe that businesses need to control how employees assemble applications, such as determining which internal information can be used and for what purpose . to avoid data leakage. .

Another concern of the tech world is the existence of a portal. The mashup and portal both serve to acquire content. But while the portal is an old and less dynamic technology, mashups open up great opportunities for people to create content. However, mashups do not appear to end the portal's existence. In contrast, the portal will serve as a platform to leverage mashup services.

Some mashup tools (mashup editor)

Microsoft Popfly is for non-professionals. Based on the Silverlight platform, people can create relatively complex online services but don't need to be knowledgeable about HTML, XTML, CSS, AJAX . All they have to do is drag - drop content from source to source. Therefore, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, describes Popfly as a tool of the common people, not necessarily for "heads containing programming code". Free Popfly and compatible Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Yahoo Pipes is one of the world's first mashup tools. Therefore, it seems to be directed to those with little technical knowledge. However, it is not difficult to use if the user is patient.

The Google Mashup Editor (GME) is widely regarded as the most advanced editor available today.

In the Web 2.0 exhibition, going on in San Francisco (USA) this week, Intel introduced Mash Maker - which supports anyone who wants to create their own custom mashups. This tool works with Internet Explorer 7 as well as Firefox 1x, 2x, 3x on Windows and 1x on Mac OS Leopard or Tiger. Meanwhile, Serena announced the Mashup Exchange - an "online market" dedicated to exchanging Business Mashups for businesses.

Four main mashup content

- Map : For example, users map real estate, gift shops, schools . in one locality via Google Maps.

- Video - photos : For example, use Flickr API application programming interface to create mashups to share photos on other sites.

- Search - shopping: The integration of search engine to look up information about tourism, restaurants .

- News : The most typical is Digg.com - a service that supports users to gather information about technology, culture . from various websites.

Four types of typical mashups

- Consumer mashup : Extract different data from multiple sources and be aggregated under a simple graphical interface.

- Data mashup : Mix data of the same type from multiple sources, such as aggregating data from RSS feeds into a single feed.

- Business mashup : Use both types of mashups, usually data integration both inside and outside the company. For example, real estate company A can analyze market share when comparing the number of houses they sold last week with the list of homes sold in the market.

- Telecom Mashup is a general telecommunications application, for example combining a messaging service from company A, company B ringtone, voicemail of company C .