Mashup. In an IT world filled with odd words, mashup is one of the oddest. According to Wikipedia, a mashup is a web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external resources to create a new service.
The genesis of how we got to mashup is interesting. First there was the virtual private network (VPN) which was to combine resources for internal use by an organization. After the VPN failed, we migrated to the intranet which was to do the same thing as the VPN but had a cooler name. And once folks quit on the intranet, we graduated to the portal. Oh, the portal had some great successes and was easy on the eyes but also had a great number of limitations that ultimately doomed the market category.
Why did all of these technologies not stick? The short answer is data. As this series of blog posts points out business intelligence tools including data mining, data integration, and reporting could be the key to end-user self-service deployment of new services like mashups. Using business intelligence tools as the basis for mashup development may in fact drive adoption as opposed to just creating another odd category name.
Bill Peterson
Spotfire Blogging Team
Image Credit: Microsoft Office Clip Art
