Newsletter #111 Mix, Match & Mash

Created on 27/02/07

A special hello to all new subscribers. This article is on the Web at this address.

Our last newsletter (18th December, 2006) was "Your Website: A Key Buying Influence".

Feature Article

Mashups are a feature of Web 2.0 (second generation Internet services) and are rapidly providing a whole range of new ways to use and view the information available on the Web. A mashup according to Wikipedia is “a website or application that seamlessly combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.”

The content for mashups is normally sourced from a third party via a public interface called an API (Application programming interface) but can include information from Web feeds and JavaScript.

Many mashups use Google Maps to display information in a visual way and the man credited with beginning this new wave of applications did just that. Paul Rademacher, a software engineer in the United States, was frustrated that he couldn’t see properties listed on craigslist, the online classified-ad site, on one page. So he hacked away at Google’s code and created his HousingMaps.com site two months before Google released its API. The company wasn’t too mad, they hired him soon after!

Now US Web giants like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft and eBay are working with the worldwide community of developers to create new applications that use their data in innovative ways. The results can be startling. One of the first mashups, Chicagocrime.org which combines data from the Chicago Police Department and Google Maps to show crimes by area, attracted 1.2 million page views in the first two weeks it began, and that was in May 2005.

There are even sites like programmableweb.com that provide mashup tools for developers and allow you to subscribe to see the latest mashups daily.

As Vint Cerf, Google’s chief internet evangelist says “We know we don't have a corner on creativity. There are creative people all around the world, hundreds of millions of them, and they are going to think of things to do with our basic platform that we didn't think of.”

Companies are also viewing enterprise mashups as a faster and cheaper way of creating customised applications that meet the needs of their internal users. American company IBM has an Enterprise Mashup Maker known as QEDwiki and other giants such as SAP and Salesforce.com are offering similar applications.

If complex customised applications become cheaper and faster to develop then it is possible to create many more of these solutions than before. The applications may be developed and customised by merely plugging in an existing solution, meaning significant efficiency gains for business.

Mashups are an exciting Web evolution that will accelerate Internet development by unlocking the creativity of millions and providing huge opportunities for developers and companies to create applications that make information gathering easier.

And that has to be a good thing.

Hot Tips

Newbies

Use the Address Bar. Google is a fantastic resource and most people use it whenever they're on the Web, however I've noticed that some people use it as a way of navigating around the Web and forget about the Address Bar. Rather than typing addresses (like www.netinsites.com) into Google, type it into the Address Bar, by clicking on the address already there (normally starts http://), then just press Enter. You should get there quicker!

Power Users

Creating a System Restore. If you plan to do any tinkering on your Windows PC, creating a System Restore is a good idea. In Windows XP, go Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore. Select Create a Restore Point, click Next and call your restore point something like "before my tinkering". Click Close once you've done this. In Windows Vista, go Start/Control Panel/System. Under "Tasks" on the right side of the window click System Protection. In the System Properties box that comes up, click Create at the bottom of the window.

Interesting Sites

Fark.com is a new aggregator of a different sort, combined with a social networking effect. Visitors post links to interesting, bizarre or amusing headlines and others comment on them. Fark.com also has regular Photoshop Contests where users manipulate an image provided by the creator of the contest. http://www.fark.com/

InsiteFul Quotes

"The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Albert Einstein.

You can see our other Quick Quotes on the front page of www.netinsites.com; just refresh the page to see another one randomly selected from our database. Great for presentations or times when you want to appear to be a techno-dude(ss)!

Archives

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Best wishes

Alex Garden

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