Comments on Mashup articles for June 28

Pietroniro and Fitcher "Map Mashups ..."
Right away, the authors cite wikipedia's definition of a mashup as follows,
"a web ‘mashup’ is “a website, or web application that combines content from one or more sources”.1 The word ‘Mashup’ comes from a term that is used in the music industry. In music, the term refers to a genre of popular music whereby the remixing of vocal and instrumental tracks from different songs to create a new song, is practiced."

I like the fact that a scholarly article is citing wikipedia! More power to wikipedia!

Anyway, the authors explain that what mashups are to music, the map industry is now joining in and using live info in correlation with maps, gps, etc... to create maps on the fly for users looking for very specific content, directions, information.
As someone who is constantly either mapquesting or google-mapping everything when I go to an unfamiliar location this is very exciting! My husband and I are more likely than not to get lost if we stray a block or two off the prescribed google map route. If we could afford an iphone we would automatically sign up for one of the map services (discussed in class a couple weeks ago).

I love the idea of housingmaps.com. How helpful that would have been when I was apartment and house searching. There are so many ideas that could be implemented with maps/info, etc... This should become very popular, and as the authors mention the possibilities are endless!

I also like the points made about traffic updates/conditions, flight info, commuter train update, etc... What a long way technology has come since the AAA TripTik my parents relied on for this information on our summer roadtrips!

Wikipedia entry on Mashups...
Reading through the description and process for creating a mashup I began to think that it seemed a little beyond my skill level. As I continued to read I noticed a variety of sites that serve as "mashup platforms" to help users creat mashups. Hooray! That is what I need to give this a try.
I thought the section on applying mashups to businesses was quite interseting, and certainly applicable. I hate "trawling" through information to dig up the tiny little piece of info that I need. By re-organizing a website with a mashup, info should be more accessible and more importantly user friendly.
We have already used a successful and popular mashup- Flickr... next I want to look into Travature- a travel mashup.