Mashups……Recycling Data

As a simple example…

Click on http://3dbuzz.co

Videos that are uploaded individually over time are collected on one site

They are re-organized

The original location is referenced with a url

Or, look at http://rogerking.me and at the embedded blogs

What is a mashup?

No rigid definition, sometimes called “remixing”

The focus is on information, data, and to a lesser extent, services.

A mashup takes information and services and brings them together in a way that, hopefully, creates a sum-bigger-than-the-parts

Systems used to develop mashups include Flash Builder, Ruby on Rails, Wordpress, content management systems like Joomla and Drupal.

The key component

The web is becoming more interconnected and more “processed”

Websites are more interconnected and fewer sites are simply one way downloads of data

A mashup can be a website or a desktop app – or combined

Data sharing

Data includes news, commentaries, videos, etc., etc. As well as a growing use of warehoused and minded data

Farmed from TV broadcasts, Vimeo, Youtube, etc. Images off web pages Text and ideas from blogs and websites Printed news that originates on paper or online Podcasts Spam and targeted email Twitter and Facebook

How data is recycled

Links

Publicly available APIs

Web services

RSS and other feeds

Web based office document bases that are partially shared

Email

http

Problems

Lots of un-processed information that is simply being repeated over and over, making the Web even bigger and harder to use

Lots of violations of copyrights, etc.

A sense of anonymousness that leads to information that is unintentionally or deliberately incorrect, mean spirited, etc.

Important

Reuse can we automated

Or it can be manual

Or it can be manual and conceptual

… imagine if the semantic web actually existed…

Examples

http://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/ Uses police data Locates crimes on Google maps Provides for filtering by users

http://flashearth.com Satellite data from Microsoft and Yahoo Focused on maps from different sources

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?area=usa&lang=eng Information from many sources - emergencies

More examples

http://whitepages.com Pulls in reverse phone data Pulls in address data … tries to sell you more data!

Non-public and partially public mashups Used by companies, government agencies, etc., up to

date on internal news A one-stop way of staying in the loop Insiders have special logins to see special information Try http://colorado.edu

Tailoring

Often a mashup gives user control over content and form What news feeds What “skin” to use What format to use –

http://www.acrylicapps.com/pulp/mac/

http://bing.com Shows a growing trend toward smart search engines

http://upcoming.yahoo.com Events happening locally

Relationship to topics already covered

Locating, translating, and integrating heterogeneous data

The semantic web

Web 2.0/3.0

Unconventional data management systems

Website development technologies

Information visualization

Manipulating data on client side

Challenges

This is creating even more varied and diverse heterogeneous data sources – what we need is some consolidation of technologies for information integration that includes creating mashups

Making large grained semantic use of web page content The semantic web… ? More focused: widgets, small web components that can be copied

and pasted

Making them legal, safe, secure, private, and accurate – and profitable

Accessing the large bulk of web data – most is still hidden

More challenges

Creating more effective use of user-supplied data

Using mashups more aggressively than just as information sources – collaborations and group coordination

Larger grained software technology – right now, it is as tough as building any website with dynamic pages Would be nice to make their construction quick and cheap Fluidity is what we need

Supporting content manipulation on client side

Manipulating images, video, audio, etc.

A related technology: portals

Perhaps just an improvement in development technology

But a portal is less dynamic, does not generally support client side manipulation of data, and usually does not support the manipulation of advanced forms of data

Other legal issues

There is a legal notion of “fair use”

There is a growing trend toward considering information unprotected

Sometimes very valuable information is being stolen… remember bit torrent and file sharing…? Entire books Marketing information

Growing use of peer to peer technology to evade centralized detection

Lastly

There is another kind of mashup… http://www.mashup-charts.com/