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What’s a mashup…

Wed, July 11th, 2007 by Jamie Folsom | 0 comments

...and what's it good for? The question is only halfway rhetorical. Disclaimer -- this post is somewhat far-ranging, and tenuously connected to the idea of mashups.

From a technical (web) perspective, "mashup" is well-defined. But I am curious what others think one is, and what they have to offer. Some other things that might be mashups:

• The Grey Album: An album created using elements of two others.
• DC Crime Maps: A web site created using services from two others.
• Tex-Mex: A cuisine that borrows from two others.
• Burning Man: A real-time in-person exercise in civilization (my phrase).
• Creole Language: From the wikipedia article: "A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many features that are not inherited from any parent."

The Grey Album is a statement about who owns music. Tex Mex tastes good. Burning Man is a temporary city. A creole is invented to allow speakers of different languages to communicate. Are those mashups?

Ok maybe that's a bit far afield. But a neologism like "mashup" implies something new has been created, and it makes sense to ask whether a mashup is any different from previous instances of borrowing, recombination, or cultural or technological fusion.

Crimeindc.org is the kind of mashup that most people are referring to when they use the term. It fundamentally improves the utility of the underlying information (DC crime reports) by putting it in geographical and chronological context. That's as close as I can get to a functional definition of the word.

Some things need only be combined with something else, to be improved. And with the proliferation of well-designed web services, web combinations have never been easier to make.

Google has recently created an online tool to make mashups easier to create. Mashups will undoubtedly become more common. But I think we'll also see more web services purpose-built to be mashed up. People have begun, in fits and starts, to make tools that are not really much good at all, unless you mash them up with other services. I think those services are going to lead to better mashups than traditional services do, and perhaps, to better web experiences.

It remains to be seen how many companies will be comfortable building a business on services maintained by others. For that, what's missing in the web ecosystem is the contractual framework that would be needed. But that's a happenstance; there's nothing to stop that framework for taking shape. Weirder things have happened; consider this: Rupert Murdoch owns myspace. That's a strange sentence, especially because he's about to buy the Wall Street Journal, too.

For lack of a more conclusive conclusion, here's an image of Burning Man, in the Black Rock Desert, as seen from space. I prefer to spend my holiday by the beach, but it's undeniably interesting what people can do in short order, given the right circumstances. Click for a larger image.

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