Category Archives: mashup

Mashup University – Commendo.com

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Commendo.com‘s Voyager is an application that will:

“Assemble content in a different way in a personal library”. Experience in Enterprise Mashups. Look at web as a content repository for your personal use.

This looks really neat, though seems there may be challenges for turning this towards commercial use since the content you are nabbing is mostly copyrighted. HOWEVER, are they focusing on the developers creating a form of mashup API that is then distributed to others who are all using the content for personal use – clever and I think fully copyright cool. …I’m not sure if this is possible though and I don’t think it’s the key idea.  They are geared to users not developers?

Allows personalization of the mashup and content experience.

Mashup University – Mashery, it’s more than just a logo

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Mashery will support developer networks. Six weeks old. They are just getting off the ground but will try to facilitate the use of all those APIs out there. “Creating a series of services to provide to API vendors”.

I’m not sure that logo is going to be understood by the whippersnapper generation who a) don’t cook much and b) don’t use a potato masher when they do. But I like it for the symbolism!

Clay, cofounder of Mashery and former feedster (programmer?), is showing us a mashed up blog demo “core” that can be skinned to other applications. However… “We are not a Wiki Company, we are here to enable …. cool web services”.

Here’s a brief on Mashery’s funding

This is a cool concept I think, but ..dudes… you need a better demo pitch for the main mashup camp!

Intel – context aware SDKs

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OK, this is good stuff. Intel’s talking about mashups that utilize location awareness where the device knows where it is. This may have some really cool travel applications! They’ll be demoing some stuff and I’m anxious to talk more with them about ways to integrate deviceOspheric information – ie the world of data, now mostly wasted, that is flowing in from navigation devices and other hardware.

They are really asking for feedback about the types of APIs that run at the base level – ie sort of machine level – that address challenges like connectivity.    For travel this might take the form of answering the following questions:

*Where am I located right now?

* Where is the blog/website/device located that has the information I need?

Mashup University – Jeff Barr from Amazon

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After the break it’s Jeff Barr from Amazon.com. (I missed the beginning where he may have coverdd some other stuff)…. Now he’s talking S3, Amazon’s super robust storage solution. Jeff’s presentations are always great because he’s a very good communicator as well as experienced technical guy. Jeremy Zawodny, Tim O’Reilly , and Matt Cutts are super impressive this way as well.
This short talk just focused on S3, but Jeff’s MIX06 talk was one of the best presentations I’ve attended in some time. He also has an interesting take on challenges facing Microsoft, where he used to work, but I’d ask him before I share those interesting nuggets of wisdom.

Mashup University – Intel Mashup Demo. Making Mashups Mobile.

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After a tasty lunch it’s back to the mental grindstone. Intel introduces the creators of a mashup they built over the past few weeks. I’m not getting everybody here but he intros: Jeff Barr (Amazon), Mike Fisher and Ben (founders of Elephant Drive, an online backup and storage company). Sean Casey and — (Intel).

Elephant Drive outlines the demo task:

Identify a real business problem
Identify mashup enabler APIs
Show the code and demo

Problems – lost power and connectivity and ?

Intel’s Mobility SDK helps solve these and was easy to integrate. Ben introduces the code, which I’m pretending to grok right now using the classic developer conference intense-stare-and-nod-at-presenter-even-though-you-have-no-idea-what-
they-are-talking-about. I shall coin this as the WTF-DEV mode.

OK, they are now showing the very nice user interface which allows you to set threshold. When reached the application will pause things so you don’t lose data.

Mashup University – Apollo Project from Abobe

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A cross-OS runtime that allows devs to leverage existing skills with Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax.

This really looks promising, as it has the potential to combine a lot of disparate elements?  But yikes – not out until 2007?  That’s forever in Internet dog mashup years.    Can’t wait to ask Adam from Google what he thinks about these developer tools.

Apollo Article

HTML +/or FLASH +/or other stuff = Apollo applications?

Dev builds application which *works everywhere*. Kind of a Flash model BUT won’t they have to get everybody to install runtime stuff? Again, I worry about indexing. Flash remains a pesky and risky addition to any site – will Apollo aps index properly? I’d guess nobody can tell yet though it’s a great question for some of the Googlers that will be here at Mashup Camp.

Mashup University – Adobe KIWI project, ActionScript Libraries

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Adobe Kiwi Project. Kiwi Project Blog

How can we pull protocols and standards into FLEX? How to build a different kind of mashup.
Note taking application demo…..<< demo connection down >> This always makes me feel better because I used to spend so many hours setting up travel internet demos and even after all the work you’d still have some problems. Even here in the heart of Silicon Valley the internet … still has shortcomings.

Hey, good job with a composed resurrection of his connection and presentation…

but…I’m lost.

As a non-developer it’s often hard to know if I’m lost due to stupidity or just being unfamiliar with the particular application background and/or code to understand.

I think usually the case is that the presenters are SO familiar with the background and their own tools and acronyms that most presentations to developers are accessed by only a few who have experience with the tools.

ActionScript 3 APIs libraries – he’s not got much time to describe … go here to find them.

After comments by search engines about the difficulties indexing FLASH elements I’m concerned that Adobe is not thinking broadly enough about how the FLEX development will index properly. Ultimately search indexing is the key to the success of most web based projects so I’d like to see a LOT more concern about how hard it still is to get FLASH properly indexed. Could FLEX projects wind up stranded due to heavy reliance on intergrating the presentation with FLASHesque items?

UPDATE: They think FLEX will solve some of the Flash indexing problems, since FLEX output is in HTML form.

Mashup University

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I’m at the Adobe FLEX presentation at Mashup U here in Mountain View. He’s talking alot about Flash, I think to make the case that FLEX adoption will be rapid and deep, which I assume is what most developers want to see to justify the learning time.

Thanks to Microsoft sponsoring a free espresso cart I’m already…. awake and alert.

The intro referenced John Musser’s excellent resource Programmable Web which is the best Mashup information site online.

I count only about 50 people here at the university, though they expect about 350 at the main event Wednesday and Thursday.

Dave from Toronto told me that they’ve got an active “Demo Camp” going up there that meets monthly, with about 100 people.    They showcase projects and network.    I’m beginning to think that these “camp” events are the future of how computer people stay informed and connected.

What to make when you CAN make ANYTHING

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Still reeling from the mashup vibe. The game has changed from what type of web environment can we AFFORD to build to what type of web environment do we WANT to make? With only minor exaggeration it’s now possible to create pretty much any website application you can imagine online very cheaply using existing APIs and existing data, and only a modest level of programming skill or support.

In the travel space this has huge implications because there are no great sites out there. Expedia and Travelocity are busy pitching vacations to people rather than building a rich interactive travel experience. Better sites like TripAdvisor and Virtual Tourist remain kind of clunky and lack the comprehensive approach though I still think VT is tops due to it’s community focus, though they appear to have too few people (of the 600,000 members they claim to have) actively participating to be robust enough to compete on a global scale for traffic. Comprehensive sites like our Online Highways are too dull and closed and lack community.

So, what will we do now that we can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in travel?

Stay tuned!