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Written by Webmaster
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Friday, 21 July 2006 |
At Mashup Camp II, I realized that there were two strong communities participating in the camp: Service API Providers and Developers. From a content perspective we could classify these two segments of campers into Content Providers and Content Consumers with respect to the assembly of mashups.
During my introduction to the campers, I eluded to this segmentation and suggested that my focus was on an element of the mashup ecosystem that could help simplify this producer/consumer relationship. Specifically, I introduced the notion of mashup maker.
A mashup maker is an assembly environment whereby the creator of a mashup leverages software components (or services) made available by content providers. While our typical IT reaction to such a description is to classify it as an IDE, I suggest that such a classification is too limiting for the mashup domain where the creator may not necessarily be a skilled programmer.
Recalling the comments made by Cliff Reeves and the Reverse Phone Number Validation example offered by StrikeIron's Excel Workbook Demo, MS-Office products are evolving into assembly environments for the knowledge worker. These products have embraced web services and have focused on the simplification of data access and integration into the Office suit. As Reeves describes, Office applications can become the assembly container for situational applications that integrate ERP and CRM data. StrikeIron's Excel demo is such an example application. Essentially, these products are mashup makers for desktop mashups.
AppliBuilder is a web-based development environment by Applibase Inc to create web applications with re-usable components which can be connected to data sources to present dynamic content. This Ajax based IDE is targeted at web developers who desire a visual browser-based assembly tool for mashups. AppliBuilder is an example of a mashup maker that allows developers to rapidly create mashups and web applications with limited or no need for server side code.
Dan Farber's comments from Mashup Camp I on ZDNet captured the notion of a mashup maker framework. He describes the Java-based framework used to create the Bonk Suite and IBM's PHP-based Enterprise Mashup Maker, called QEDWiki. These frameworks provide a server-side assembly environment for mashup creators thereby requiring only a browser for the assembly experience. Yet they differ in that they target different users. Much like Applibase which focused on the Javascript programmer, the Bonk framework is geared towards the Java programmer seeking to build mashups. QEDWiki is an Application Wiki framework targeted at knowledge workers who seek to build mashups with minimal dependency on IT professionals. While the current state of QEDWiki does not meet that knowledge worker enablement vision, it is clear that IBM is driving in a direction to minimize the programming skills necessary for the assembly experience of a mashup.
As we embark on what seems to be a new wave of the internet revolution in Web 2.0, mashup makers are rare. What can we expect as this element of the mashup ecosystem evolves? Here are a few thoughts:
- Mashup makers will leverage widgets for UI and data components
- Some mashup makers will be IDEs for client-side or server-side scripting
- Some mashup makers will focus on the business professional seeking relief from their dependency on IT
- As Mashup makers depend and consume widgets, a whole ecosystem will emerge for the development, publishing, finding and hosting of widgets
- Some mashup makers will leverage Wiki frameworks to incorporate the collaboration benefits of that technology
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Last Updated ( Friday, 21 July 2006 )
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