Understanding Mashup
The melting pot effect of Web 2.0 has allowed the introduction of more user-centric services. For example, the web platform enables read-write collaboration, wherein content can be created, annotated, repurposed and shared for common use, leading to more user interactions, generation of new ideas, information and cross culture fusion.
In this emerging web culture, mashup is a content aggregation application that combines data and/or functionality from various sources to create a new user defined service. In this post, we attempt to examine its implications across work fields.
Mashup: The Wikipedia describes a mashup as ‘a web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a new service’. As a Web 2.0 tool, it involves reuse, remix, combination of data and/or content from more than one source and use of APIs into an integrated service experience. In the mashup set up, API (Application Programming Interface) plays a very vital role as it defines the system functionality with other source systems and users in blending multiple data/functionality sources into a unified user defined combination.
While mashups and portals are both content aggregation tools, mashups are new Web 2.0 based, API driven hybrid content generator as opposed to server based approach of the portals.
As is evident from the following Google Trend Graph the portal has been around longer, with mashup coming into reckoning from 2005. The mashups are therefore yet to mature over time and going to co-exist with portals for some time to come.
Search Volume Index trend-line – shows how many searches have been done for the term entered, relative to the total number of searches done on Google, over time.
News Reference Volume trend-line – represents the number of times the topic appeared in Google News stories
Flight of fancy: Think of a user sourcing/copying data from web sites/applications and pasting into a defined excel format – this is an example of a very low-tech mashup for basic understanding.
With the likes of Goggle, Wikipedia, MSN touching our lives in a big way, sooner or later we are going to get exposed to various mashup services, if not already experienced. The mashup application, in fact can produce highly creative results, by blending content from various sources.
For example:
- UNFCCC GHG Data – UNFCCC, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat & Google Map created a ready reference mapping of the greenhouse gas data (GHG) by combination of any emission categories by year from 1990 onwards for a number of countries.
- Addroo – by combining YouTube, Windows Live Search and Google, it is a four-in-one search application to display – web search, news, images and video results out of a single query.
- Cleepr – is a reference and search service for music videos by content aggregation from MTV, Wikipedia, YouTube, DBpedia, Freebase, MySpace and Vimeo.
Likewise, there is a whole host of interesting mashup application examples, created imaginatively as remixed combinations of various sources.
Looking ahead: The impact of Web 2.0 culture has been varied across the sectors due to different adoption levels. While the consumer space has embraced mashups well, it is not so much so in the business sector.
Research suggests that companies are using more of Web 2.0 technologies now than in the past in deriving greater business dividends. Higher adoption of the tools will also now take place as a result. It is expected therefore that the business sector will catch up with the consumer space in embracing mashups in the coming future.
One important area to check out in the changing mashup scenario is that of the learning sector. Over time, the traditional understanding of learning has shifted from the one way behaviorist mode to an interactive, multi source ‘discovery of learning’ approach. With this paradigm shift, the institutions around the world, from the educational and/or training domain therefore have the added responsibility of creating the right ecosystem of learning to ensure that the learners have the access to the shared wealth of knowledge and the means and tools for interactive engagement. The role of the new web culture with its technology & tools is of paramount importance in this respect.
The critical point to note is that the learning environment to be really web-ready, open & amenable to mashup applications in the true sense, still requires some fundamental barriers to be taken care of as a starting point. In making, educational knowledge available as web open resources, shareable with attribution permission, in a reusable file format remains the cornerstones for success for creating dynamic learning content.
The world of mashups is full of potential, it is upto us to make the right choice.
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