What is an Internet ‘Mashup’?

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?

Answer: 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.More Internet for Beginners Q&A

What is Social Media?

Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot these days, but it can sometimes be difficult to answer the question of what is social media. If MySpace is a social media site, and Mag.nolia is a social media site, and Wikipedia is a social media site, then just what is social media?

Is it social networking?

Is it social bookmarking?

Is it wiki?

The best way to define social media is to break it down. Media is an instrument on communication, like a newspaper or a radio, so social media would be a social instrument of communication.

In Web 2.0 terms, this would be a website that doesn’t just give you information, but interacts with you while giving you that information. This interaction can be as simple as asking for your comments or letting you vote on an article, or it can be as complex as Flixster recommending movies to you based on the ratings of other people with similar interests.

Think of regular media as a one-way street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give your thoughts on the matter.

Social media, on the other hand, is a two-way street that gives you the ability to communicate too.

Is Social Media and Social News The Same Thing?

It is easy to confuse social media with social news because we often refer to members of the news as “the media.” Adding to the confusion is the fact that a social news site is also a social media site because it falls into that broader category.

But social news is not the same thing as social media anymore than a banana is the same thing as fruit. A banana is a type of fruit, but fruit can also be grapes, strawberries, or lemons. And while social news is social media, social networking and wikis are also social media.

What Are Some Social Media Websites?

Now that we have answered the question of what is social media, we can move on to social media websites. Because social media is such a broad term, it covers a large range of websites. But the one common link between these websites is that you are able to interact with the website and interact with other visitors.

Here are some examples of social media websites:

• Social Bookmarking. (Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Simpy) Interact by tagging websites and searching through websites bookmarked by other people.
• Social News. (Digg, Propeller, Reddit) Interact by voting for articles and commenting on them.
• Social Networking. (Facebook, Hi5, Last.FM) Interact by adding friends, commenting on profiles, joining groups and having discussions.
• Social Photo and Video Sharing. (YouTube, Flickr) Interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on user submissions.
• Wikis. (Wikipedia, Wikia) Interact by adding articles and editing existing articles.

And these websites are not the only social media websites. Any website that invites you to interact with the site and with other visitors falls into the definition of social media.