mashups

I recently investigated a few mashups to determine whether they will be helpful in my daily life or professional life. In technology, a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool; an example is the use of cartographic data from Google Maps to add location information to real-estate data, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source (Wikipedia, 2008).

Following are the results from my investigation.

Foxytunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/)
FoxyTunes Planet is a personalized music aggregator. The website aggregates music videos, photos, news, bios and much more from the best music sites all over the Web into one convenient place. This site didn't require membership. I typed in a favorite rock band and it came up with a page with videos, internet search, songs, lyrics, and other info about the band, all on one page. This is very nice if you are looking for more info about a band. If you are looking to purchase a song from the band I would not recommend this site...too much information. Itunes is a better choice for purchases. I will not use this site in the future because I have no use for this kind of information both in the personal life and my professional life.

Spicypipes (http://www.spicypipes.com/)
The vision behind SpicyPipes is to create innovative and creative mashups that will be useful for your daily life. SpicyPipes would allow its users to create online mashups in seconds, where they can use the created mashups for personal use and share it with others through tagging. SpicyPipes seems to be created by non-English speaking programs. The grammar used on the pages was frequently incorrect. Membership is required and it was not intuitive to get to the register screen. Navigation on their site was not logical. The FAQ page had an error message and was not helpful at all. The idea behind the site is to give users the capability to create photo slideshows, search for travel destinations, and share an unlimited about of media. It will fetch photos from several photo sharing sites. Given the poor quality of this Website, I would not use it at all. There are other sites more suited for these purposes like Openkapow and Roxer.

Roadtriphelper (http://www.roadtriphelper.com/)
This is mainly a hotel finder for your next travel destination. Map. Compare. Book. The site is laid out well and is easy to navigate. After typing in a destination, the site was a little slow in retrieving hotel information, presumably due to the large amount of data it crunches. I received a map of the area, including street and satellite images, and a list of possible hotels in the area. This may be something I would use in my next travel vacation. It states that it uses data from the major travel booking Websites, but I didn't find impressive results in my searches.

Reference
Wikipedia, Retreived on July 25, 2008 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)