Mash-Ups

Mash-Ups

Definition

"A Web mash up is a new application that is created by pulling together two or more complementary Web-based applications and/or data sources ... The term mash up came from the field of music. A musical mash up is a remix of two or more songs into a new piece of music. " (Patricia Seybold at http://outsideinnovation.blogs.com/pseybold/2006/03/why_mash_ups_ma.html)

"Creative people these days essentially fall into two groups. On the one hand are the people who create things from nothing, like the singer-songwriter who picks up his guitar and plays a tune. And on the other are the people who use pre-existing materials and rework them into something new, like the DJ who samples part of a record to form the core of a new song. In musical terms, this second approach is traditionally known as remixing. More recently, a new style of remixing has emerged, where instead of repurposing just part of a tune for use in a greater composition, two or more complete tunes are melded together. This new discipline is known as the art of the mash-up. In Web 2.0, the principles of both remixing and mash-ups are applied to content and applications on the web." (http://www.psfk.com/2006/05/understanding_u.html)

Examples

A directory of Mash-ups in the form of a matrix, at http://www.programmableweb.com/matrix