From Paul Gil,
Your Guide to Internet for Beginners.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!

You hear this "mashup" expression being used by techie friends of yours. They talk about "oh, that is such an awesome mashup". But what exactly does "mashup" mean?

A. April, 2008

"Mashup" comes from the term "mashed potatoes", but is much more sophisticated. A "mashup" combines services from different web sites into a single web site. The intent is to give exceptional customer service to the reader by combining the best of two worlds.

Mashups are not new, by any means. The idea of combining multiple software API services ("application programming interfaces") is decades old. In fact, your Microsoft Windows operating system is a perfect everyday example of mashup programming. But in the last few years, web site mashups have become a serious business for web programmers.

Mashups are most commonly a combination of maps and search-locator services. Some of the most popular mapping mashup examples include:

• Parkingcarma.com: a mashup that locates and maps parking spots for you at several major US cities.
• Weatherbonk.com: see real-time weather reports overlayed on top of geographic maps.
• Pubwalk.com: discover nightspots and late night restaurants with this nifty mashup.
• Google Transit: for Japan and key parts of the USA, you can plan your bus and train trip using this clever mashup.

The second most common form of Internet mashup is the combining of reader opinions with other lookup services. Here are some examples of reader opinion mashups:

• City Search: an online city guide for visitors, functioning as both yellow pages as well as reader reviews and opinions.
• Pandora FM online radio : Pandora combines streaming music with a personal favorites database... you listen to music, while simultaneously building a profile of the kind of music you like with each song you listen to.
• Yelp: a search service for finding restaurants, combined with thousands of reader reviews and comments on those restaurants.
• Angie's List: a directory service of general contractors, with customer reviews and opinions on those contractors.

Facebook.com is the current "uber" mashup today. As a massive social networking site, Facebook has become a cultural phenomenon. It mashes up many different creative services into a unified social experience online. There are hundreds of applications being mashed together at Facebook...so many, in fact, that entire web sites are dedicated just to reviewing and explaining Facebook mashups. Here are three examples of hundreds of Facebook mashup services:

• Facebook "Zombies": this playful game entices people to make silly connections with other Facebook members.
• Facebook "Music Videos": friends introduce their favorite music videos to each other.
• Facebook "iRead": users share what books they are reading, book reviews, and find other readers with similar tastes.

Internet mashup web sites are quickly growing for 2007-2008. Not only are they clever ways to provide locating and review services, but mashups are also relatively easily to program. As of January 2008, there are approximately 12 new internet mashups launched each day. At this time, only a fraction of new mashups achieve significant popularity, but mashups are definitely here to stay. And some of these mashups are indeed very useful and practical services.