mashups: more than maps

mike ellis,

solutions architect, Eduserv

http://channels.ourmedia.org/files/bill-hillary-mashup.jpghttp://flickr.com/photos/psd/492139935/

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so..

• here’s what we’ll be doing:

• Introductions

• Mashup overview

• The “mashup pattern”

• Deconstructing some examples

• Techniques and tools

• Problems

• Solutions

• Build?

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today

• people have a variety of backgrounds, skills and requirements

• the entire point is that you go away with what you need from today...

• ...so please ask questions at any time

• or (preferably) talk to me over a pint...

• ...or do it online - details at the end.

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me, me, me

• I am..Mike Ellis

• I was Head of Web for NMSI for 7 years

• ..and now work in the “Professional Services Group” for Eduserv (I am a consultant who helps people realise their content vision using appropriate technologies)

• I’m fascinated with the real use of technology: I’m a geek but hopefully a “real-world” one...

•...in other words, the things I’m going to talk about should be useful (!)

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about Eduserv

• Eduserv are a not for profit IT company

• We work to “realise the benefits of ICT for learners and researchers”

• We provide web dev, hosting, consultancy, ATHENS, CHEST, and have a Foundation who plough money back into the HE community

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you...

• 85% of you are “web coders” or more technical than this...

• 42% of you have built at least one mashup before...

• 85% of you want to have the technical knowhow to build mashups

• ..but let’s have a quick round the room

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mashup overview

• “more than one source”

• consumption of data and services

• mashup environment = paradigm shift:

• the “web of data”

• machines talking to each other

• RSS

• this is (or can be) a black-box environment

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mashup overview

• more importantly, this is about approach

• services are “out there” and available

• data is out there and available (or should be)

• (and when it’s not, we can still hack)

• in general: “we are smarter than me”

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in one sentence

“mashups let you do more with less”

(because other people have done a lot of the work already)

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• identify the need from your users

• find data and service sources

• look to see who/what else is out there – and see if you can borrow or copy. View source!

• decide on an acceptable SLA, and work on contingencies

• determine how you’re actually going to do it based on these decisions

project pattern

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deconstruction

• as with much tech, you can identify patterns

• and because of the “black box” approach, these can be generalised

• so let’s have a look at a couple of examples

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mapping

“Museums in Paris with free admission”

http://www.archi-nova.net/paris/tips.html

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• institution provides the data (museum name, location, review, description, etc)

• mapping service provides a way to display these locations on a map (plus some additional stuff)

• data and service is mashed and displayed on your site

mapping

data service

your site

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mapping

1. Page loads the API

2. Call includes your key

3. Initialize() is called

4. Your data is included here

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timeline

From UK Natural History Museum “dinosaur directory”

http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/examples/

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• institution provides the data (exhibit date, description, etc)

• timeline service provides a way to display these dates

• data and service is mashed and displayed on your site

timeline

data service

your site

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timeline

1. Page loads the API

2. Options for display

3. Your data

4. Display it

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“RSS to Image”

From me (!)

http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/experiments/rss-to-image/

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• services provide data RSS (title, description, link..)

• service provides means to analyse this content

• my code provides a way to mash data and display

RSS (news)

Flickr search API

display

Term Extractor

data service

your site

“RSS to Image”

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why mashup?

• developing these things from scratch would be:

• expensive

• complicated

• bespoke

• ...and therefore silly...

• it’s a quick way to prototype and hack

• you get a shared resource pool for any problems

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case study “design pattern”

• determine what you want to do

• identify service (www.programmableweb.com)

• sign up for API key (specific to URL root)

• identify your data source(s)

• identify any data services

• shape data sources to fit requirement

• drop these into the code

• shape the prototype

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techniques and tools

• there are three major “mashup building” tools:

• Yahoo! Pipes (http://pipes.yahoo.com)

• Google Mashup Editor (http://editor.googlemashups.com)

• Microsoft PopFly (http://www.popfly.com)

• these do similar things but are for different audiences

• all require you to “think flowchart”

• we’ll look at Y!Pipes in more detail in a moment...

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Yahoo! Pipes

• drag and drop

• “patchbay”-like

• RSS-focus

techniques and tools

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Google Mashup Editor

• code, pseudo-code, html

• google gadget output

techniques and tools

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MS PopFly

• nice but confusing interface

• requires Silverlight

• webpages, too

techniques and tools

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problems!• you are relying on 3rd parties

• often no SLA – is this ok for you?

• what if the service, system or data disappeared?

• accessibility: a changing landscape...

• how do you measure goodness...?

• where can you get data from, and how long will it take to clean it up? (don’t underestimate this!)

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solutions!

• think about the true mission-critical nature of your mashup. Is it REALLY likely that google will go down more than your in-house server?

• work out contingencies: alternative services or ways of displaying your stuff

• never, ever use a service that swallows your data!

• look at www.programmableweb.com for ideas, sources of data and services. Or just google it.

• encourage everyone to produce machine-readable data as a matter of course. It isn’t hard, really!

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build?

• is there time...?

• if so, let’s build!

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thanks!

thanks very much for coming along. I hope it helped more than baffled..

you can talk to me anytime – you should have my details by now, or go here:

google talk: mike.ellis@gmail.com

twitter: http://twitter.com/dmje

blog: http://electronicmuseum.org.uk or http://blog.eduserv-psg.net/