Ajax: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 19. Mashups

Chapter 17 and Chapter 18 demonstrated how to create and use web services, and by now you should have a pretty good idea of the types of services that are available. (If not, Appendix C is a good source of information.) Combining two or more web services can yield some functional and easy-to-use applications. On their own, each service may be good but harder to use, or less useful, than it would be if it were combined with other services. A mashup is what you get when you combine web services. The result is a Web 2.0 application that is more sophisticated than its parts and provides functionality that most likely did not exist before.

Mashups in Web 2.0 Applications

Mashups can aid in the development of Web 2.0 applications by giving them better interactivity with maps and associated data, and can aid in the manipulation of blogs, lists, photo and video sharing, and just about any other type of service found on the Web. Without the capabilities these mashups provide, some of these existing applications would lack the necessary functionality to truly be considered Web 2.0 applications. Even worse, they may not be as useful as they could be. Web services in general, but especially when they are combined into mashups, help to give web applications a dynamic and often flashy appearance. This, in turn, makes users feel like they are using an application, and not just viewing a web site.

Mashup creation ushered in the era of Web 2.0 applications and their underlying programming. ...