Friday, October 19, 2007

WLA 2007: The 411 on Mashups

Presented by Julie Fricke, Reference and Web Resource Librarian, Lawrence University.

Mashups are applications that use more than one source to create something new. Mapping mashups are about 32% of what's out there right now, but photo and news mashups are becoming more popular. Check the Programmable Web for more info.

Mashups are:
  • easy to use
  • easy to find
  • easy to manipulate
  • the future of web stuff
Examples:
How do I make one?
  • add this app (point & click - like iGoogle's widgets, Facebook apps)
  • clone (yahoo pipes is an example)
  • program (server side - Google API for example)
Implications for libraries:
  • Intellectual property: know when you can use the data or site, so you're not violating copyright; make sure you know when it's okay to remix
  • Copyright: check for Creative Commons licenses
  • Provenance: pay attention to the origin of the info and authority
  • Scale and dependency: can you get support for using the mashup?
  • Keeping up!
More info is available at wlamash on del.icio.us, the Programmable Web (link above), and mashups.com. Julie's presentation will be available online soon on the conference web site. Look at dapper and datamashups for help with creating quick and easy mashups. Can't wait to dabble!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For people interested in Mashups, I'd suggest that you take a look at MashupMania.com - it's another web based visual mashup tool that just rencently launched.

Elliot said...

Orchestr8's AlchemyPoint is another mashup builder platform made available in recent weeks. It offers a variety of capabilities not found in Popfly, Yahoo Pipes, etc. -- including the ability to visually copy-and-paste any web content, and visual mouse-based web content scraping.