mashup Archive

After the review last week of GMapsFlightTracker (GMFT), today I came across another Google Maps mashup for flight travel. Named Flight Tracker, it comes to us from FlightStats. This one is more in-depth than GMFT in that it provides info for any flight pair and detailed information on the arrival airport. Delays are shown as well. I always find it interesting to look at the on-time rates for any flight pair and wonder what it would be like if Web workers had that type of poor on-time project completion rates. Maybe we need this type of rating service for workers :)

The mashup works in a similar manner to the map offerings on-board. Starts with a zoomed-out view and slowly zooms in. You can also just sit back, click random and watch flights all over the U.S. Is this a better time-waster than say Justin.TV? Check out my video review of Flight Tracker:

Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the linkup!

I found this mashup on Download Squad. Gmaps Flight Tracker is a simple mashup of Google Maps and data from fboweb.com to provide inbound flight information on several of the most popular airports in the U.S. including NY, Atlanta, Boston, etc. It works pretty well though it appears to only display flights relatively close to the arrival airport. You can see altitude, speed and headings on each plane. It is a bit scary how close these planes get on arrival!

Chris notes, "The inbound flight schedule refreshes every 40 seconds so flight statuses are ensured to be at their most accurate. Data is provided from fboweb.com and based on the position reports for each aircraft once per minute, and sometimes once every 20 seconds in high traffic areas. Want to check things out in 3d? Download the GE kml file and check out past flights and height profiles in Google Earth."

Do we really need this? It's cute and all, but why do we need to track an airplane every 40 seconds on its location? And more importantly, does this type of data open up some very negative possibilities for those who wish to make trouble?

Here is my video review: (RSS come inside)

I came across two websites that offer very distinctive and specific services, MyDesignIn and Krillion (both in Beta). And after getting to know more about their features, and being able to speak with the people behind these companies, I thought that MyDesignIn and Krillion could end up working very well together as a sort of mash-up.

MyDesignIn

MyDesignIn is an online home design tool that allows you to re-create room layouts (in flash) and drag-and-drop photos of sinks, stoves, sofas, etc. onto the layout for an architectual representation. The photos used are ones you've collected with their bookmarking tool from manufacturers' sites like Kohler, or retailers' sites like Pottery Barn.

Interestingly enough, MyDesignIn is a social network as well. So adding photos to the larger collection of furniture and appliances only offers greater variety for the entire community. Room layouts can be saved and shared as well. If you don't have the time to draw your own L-shaped kitchen using MyDesignIn, you can take someone else's and modify it accordingly. Windows and doors are easily added, removed, and re-sized. The end result is a comprehensivly scaled blueprint of your room, and this can be printed or emailed to your friends and family, or contractor and designer. Others can also be invited to collaborate on the design, making furniture arrangement suggestions as well as other possible changes.

Among the things they'd like to do in the future is add local search results for the products used in members' designs.

That's where I thought Krillion could come into play.

Krillion

Krillion is a search engine that specifically finds appliances locally. They have an extensive search process that sifts through maps, addresses, images, price points, manufacturers and retailers to offer up the best local search result list one could imagine. You'll not only get the closest places to find that Whirlpool refridgerator, but you'll get the prices of each search result (among other useful details), along with a click-to-call feature that will direct you to the necessary department, not the basic customer service line. This search for a specific loaction in addition to a specific product makes this an Actionable Local Search. It's designed for the ready-to-buy consumer that has already spent a lot of time researching the item they'd like to buy.

Why MyDesignIn and Krillion are such a good fit

MyDesignIn and Krillion have very similar values and objectives. Their user-base are consumers that have or are willing to spend a good amount of time preparing for their next steps. Their models are invaluable to advertisers, as their demographic is most likely of a higher socio-economic status, and is nicely targeted by MyDesignIn and Krillion services. The end user for both of these services is inevitibly driven to local offline locations, providing business for local retailers and precious data that can be used for analytics and marketing.

For Krillion to be able to provide the search results for the very objects users are inserting in their designs on MyDesignIn, this added value provides a means to an end for both services. As Krillion aims to be included in the search indexes for which we typcially get our search results from anyway, MyDesignIn may find themselves utilizing Krillion's search finess regardless.

This article was written by Kristen Nicole, who writes for 606tech.com.

Conference after conference, chat after chat, two topics seem to emerge in almost all of them. Those two topics are: mashups and wikis. And it's not just at conferences and in discussions, but it's also online. Yesterday I attended a session about mastering the mashup and the day before I listened to several CEOs discuss wiki products. I also met with WetPaint (interview posted tonight) who also make a wiki product.

While last year was all about the blog, in my opinion this year will be about the mashup and the wiki. So I see four options for an outcome:

• Wiki dominates
• Mashup dominates
• Both Wiki and Mashup dominate
• Neither dominates, its all about something else

Mashups

Why are mashups hot now? Mashups are like the frozen food aisle in the supermarket. You purchase a half-created meal, add fresh meat, some spices, your own sauce and you have a great meal. And mashups are the same thing. You take someone else's great product, slap your own "added-value" to it, and now you have created something even better than the original in many cases.

Seth from Meebo discussed that the companies who have been mashed from will want to see value this year, be it a subscription type fee or some ad revenue split. I agree with Seth and I think as more mashups become wildly popular, the mashed from companies will want more and more. It will be interesting to see how Google handles this with so many mashed up services generating from Google content and services.

I think we will see many productivity bashed mashups this year versus ones created for fun. While they most likely won't be called mashups, there will also be a trend for b2b mashups. I can see great value for intranets to use the mashup model with their suppliers and so forth.

Wikis

We know Wikis are hot. I know back in the day, a Wiki could have saved us from hundreds of hours of custom development for intranet content systems. Wiki products are the top talked about product category currently.

I think before Wikis can come out of the tech closet and really hit mainstream (like blogs are), we will need to see more user-friendly wiki products. Companies like Wetpaint are now creating more friendly wiki products. I think we can all admit that the MediaWiki software is not the easiest to use with all of its {}*&%$$ codes. WetPaint already has over 200,000+ sites created.

I would bet we will see other companies forming around the friendly-wiki. And while WetPaint is an ASP model, I am guessing the next big one will be a server install model which will work perfectly for an inhouse intranet.

Your Thoughts!

So which do you think will dominate? Will both dominate? Am I offbase and neither will and some other item will? Share your thoughts because I want to know!

IconNicholson has announced plans to create an innovative approach to shopping by combining a social network and the mall. They call this new shopping experience "Social Retailing" (they have even applied for a trademark on the term).

IconNicholson says, Social Retailing brings today's digital lifestyle into the retail store with community-building tools and user-generated content capabilities that help tech savvy, young adults — typically compulsive and social shoppers — connect in real time with their friends to share their shopping experiences.

They call their new store the, "X07 Store of the Future." Rachael McBrearty, VP Creative Strategy stated, "Social retailing is a concept that evolved out of our work building personas based on youth shopping needs, behaviors and current technology trends. The demonstrations in X07 provide retailers with a vision for how they can reach the audience at the center of the social computing craze seen in websites like YouTube and MySpace, to connect in-store shopping with the online world in a way that is new, entertaining — and completely relevant."

I think the jury is still out as to whether this type of concept will work. But it might actually get young adults off the PC and back into the malls which are one of the most popular hangouts for this demographic. And it will also help out one of my 2007 predictions about us getting off the PC more and out with our friends in a social way.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the launch of The Big Mashup, a unique online experience examining how the world of entertainment and news gathering is rapidly changing as the network blurs the line between audience and entertainer, viewer and newscaster, fan and producer. With Internet technology—music and movies, broadcast news and blogs, entertainers and audiences—can all converge and mix online.

The Big Mashup will feature a documentary with media and entertainment thought leaders, a community blog discussing the impact of changes brought on by the network, and Snapp Radio, an online music and photo application mashup developed by Sun Labs and featuring Last.fm and RadioParadise streams paired with Flickr images.

From Ingrid Van den Hoogen, senior vice president of brand and global communications:

"Our Big Mashup brings together leading innovators across various new media sectors to address the future of entertainment and the growth in the network which is fueled by community and collaboration."

Check out the release which contains a few short videos with the following people:

• Chris Melissinos – Sun
• Joanne Colan – Rocketboom
• Douglas Rushkoff – Author
• Paul D. Miller/ DJ Spooky
• Snapp Radio, a Web 2.0 mashup

Earlier today, Yahoo! announced that they will be allowing developers to build from the Yahoo! mail platform. A couple of excerpts from the release:

Yahoo Mail — used by 257 million people — is designed to spark development of thousands of new e-mail applications built not only by Yahoo engineers but by outside companies and individuals.

Chad Dickerson, head of the Sunnyvale company's software developer relations program, said he believed that the open approach to programming represented the biggest single Web software ever to be opened up for public development.

"Yahoo is a very large company but we can't build every applications that a user might want," Dickerson said in an interview at Yahoo headquarters. "You can imagine tens of thousands of niche applications (springing) from Yahoo Mail."

I am sure that once the code is available, we will see new extended versions of Yahoo! mail and lots of exciting mashups. This is similar to Amazon and eBay opening up and allowing developers to build off their platforms. I would love a mashup bringing together my webmail client for my domain mail plus Yahoo mail in the same window.

I really like Yahoo! Mail and in my opinion it is a much better product than its main competitor, Google Mail.